Sir Paon De Ruet and Chaucer 59 



Ardennes made Hainaut hilly and unfit for agriculture, while the 

 picturesque points of jagged rock offered many a tempting site for 

 castles which could command the surrounding country from a craggy 

 and easily defended height. The forests offered extensive hunting- 

 grounds/^ Commerce had almost no foothold ; the mines were not 

 exploited till a late date, and manufacture was not established until 

 the fourteenth century, and then was a protected industry fostered 

 by the counts. . . . The people in Hainaut remained unknown, 

 while her nobles were renowned throughout Europe, and proudly 

 maintained their feudal state, feudal sentiment, and feudal man- 

 ners. . . . Count William I of Hainaut (1304-1337) was prominent 

 in European politics, acting frequently as mediator, being brother-in- 

 law to the king of France, father-in-law to the king of England and 

 to the emperor. . . . Meanwhile the cities of Hainaut began to 

 grow powerful in proportion as the nobles lost ground. The very 

 battles in which they gained honor were their destruction; and the 

 flower of Hainaut chivalry was left on the battle-fields to which their 

 prowess and love of adventure had led them. 



Paon de Ruet may have been impelled to seek his fortune in 

 England by the recital of the exploits of Fastre de Ruet, who 

 accompanied Sir John Beaumont in 1326, when, with three hun- 

 dred followers, he went to assist the English against the Scots. 

 Fastre^* was the younger brother of the last lord of Roeulx 

 descended from the Counts of Hainaut. Both brothers fell into 

 pecuniary straits, and were obliged to alienate their landed pos- 

 sessions. Fastre died in 1331, and was buried in the abbey- 

 church of Rceulx, while his brother Eustace survived till 1336.^^ 

 Perhaps Paon was, like Fastre, a younger brother, possibly of a 

 collateral line. 



Of the rewards for Paon's services in England we know almost 

 nothing; only Kervyn de Lettenhove tells us (23. 38) : 'En 1332, 

 un compte de la maison de la reine d'Angleterre mentionne un 



with one of those rare touches of enthusiasm that here and there relieve 

 the severity of his narrative, were the Nervii.' The battle in which 

 they were overcome was fought near the present Neuf-Mesnil and Haut- 

 mont (Holmes, pp. 53 ff., 654 ff.), west of Maubeuge, and 25 miles south- 

 west of Roeulx. 



^ The modern Hainaut is larger than Rhode Island, and smaller than 

 Long Island. 



"Froissar't 2. 64, 66, 113, 114, 117, 119, 122; 17. 16; Jean le Bel, ed. 

 Viard and Deprez, i. 40. 



"Froissart 23. 39-41. 



