[9][10] Born into a small farming family[11] and brought up at Thornton-le-Dale[12] near Pickering, he studied at the University of Oxford where he was sponsored by Thomas de Neville, the Archdeacon of Durham.

[16] At first Richard chose to live as a recluse in a forest at Thornton but he soon left, fearing his family would restrain his life of solitude.

[24] Around 1348, Rolle knew the Yorkshire anchoress Margaret Kirkby, who was his principal disciple and the recipient of much of his writings[25] and would be important in establishing his later reputation.

[29] In one of his best-known works, Incendium Amoris (The Fire of Love), Rolle provides an account of his mystical experiences, which he describes as being of three kinds: a physical warmth in his body, a sense of wonderful sweetness, and a heavenly music that accompanied him as he chanted the Psalms.

This was part of an important movement in medieval Christianity, in which the feeling of God's presence became central to devotional practice; Rolle is a key figure in the development of affective mysticism.

[30] Similarly, as Andrew Kraebel has demonstrated, Rolle claims that his extensive commentary on scripture (in both Latin and the vernacular) is divinely inspired, giving his works an authority beyond that of the purely interpretive and academic (even as he drew on a wide range of Biblical scholarship).

It is addressed to Margaret Kirkby, who entered her enclosure as a recluse on 12 December 1348, and is a vernacular guide for her life as an anchorite.

Part of this may have been due to the efforts of Margaret Kirkby, who moved to the priory, probably between 1381 and 1383, to be near the body of her master, Rolle.

In some manuscripts, Rolle's Commentary on the Psalter is interpolated with Lollard teaching, providing indications of one group who read his work.

He was criticised by Walter Hilton and the author of The Cloud of Unknowing; a defence of Rolle's work was written by the hermit Thomas Basset in the late fourteenth century against the attack of an unnamed Carthusian.

[44] He was defended by various religious figures, however (one of whom compared his accounts of mystical experience to those of the German Henry Suso), and the Incendium Amoris or Fire of Love is mentioned as one of the books Margery Kempe had a priest read aloud to her to increase her devotion.