58 Sir Paon De Ruet and Chaucer 



midst of a broken and wooded country." The town grew up 

 around a Premonstratensian abbey founded about 1126, bearing 

 the name of St. Fullan, or Foillan, an Irish missionary to this 

 region, who was murdered in 655. The lords of Rceulx, who 

 sprang from the counts of Hainaut, and several of whom had 

 borne the name of Eustace, came to an end about 1336; but the 

 lordship finally devolved in the fifteenth century upon the family 

 of Croy, to which is due the existing chateau, one of the finest 

 edifices in Belgium. Charles V erected the domain into a count- 

 ship in 1530. Its arms are: Vert, a lion argent, armed [teeth 

 and claws] and langued gules, holding in its dexter paw a wheel 

 or, surmounted by a count's coronet.® A great variety of spell- 

 ings for Rceulx is found in the ancient documents, of which the 

 commonest is Rues ; others are r Ruet, Rueth, Ruez, Roes, Roelx, 

 Roeld, Ruelt.® It may be noted that Katharine of Lancaster's 

 name is spelled Roelt in the Patent Roll for Oct. 5, 141 1." 



The circumstances in Hainaut which determined the knight- 

 errantry of its nobles are suggested by the following passage^^ : 



In Holland, the population was mainly burgher and peasant, while 

 Hainaut was the very last stronghold of the feudal nobility, with 

 all the virtues and with all the faults of chivalry.^- Spurs of the 



^ Froissart mentions it in a pastourelle {Poesies, ed. Scheler, 2. 319 ; 

 Bartsch, Altfr. Romanzen und Pastourellen, p. 328) : 

 Entre le Roes at la Louviere 

 Vi awen desous un ourmiel, 

 Ensi qu'a basse remontiere, 

 Mainte touse et maint pastouriel, etc. 



La Louviere is 6 miles east of Rceulx. With the opening line compare 

 Froissart's (Bartsch, pp. 321, 323) 'Entre Aubrecicourt et Mauni' and 

 'Entre Eltem [Eltham] et Wesmoustier' [Westminster]. 



* Grande Encyclopedic 28. 810 ; Jourdain and Van Stalle, Diet. Encyc. 

 de Geog. Hist, du Royaume Belgique 2. 271-2; Monuments pour servir 

 a I'Histoire de Natnur, de Hainatit, et de Ltixembourg {Coll. des Chron. 

 Beiges) I. 757; Larousse, Grand Diet. Univ. 13. 1291 ; Chevalier, 

 Repertoire: Topo-Bibliographic 2. 2573; Bede, Hist. Eccl., ed. Plummer, 

 2. 172. 



"See Monuments, Vols, i and 2; Froissart 2. 64, 113, 117; 17. 16. 



"jBjtc. Hist., p. 159; Rymer; Cal. Pat. Rolls. 



" Blok, Hist, of the People of the Netherlands i. 302-6. 



"It will be remembered that this region was the home of C?esar's 

 Nervii. Holmes says (Ccesar's Conquest of Gaul, p. 53) : 'This people, 

 whom of all his enemies Caesar most respected, and of whom he wrote 



