Sir Paon De Ruet and Chaucer 57 



et I'a'ieule des Tudor. Parmi les ecuyers on cite Watelet de Mauny,* 

 Robert de Gages, Robert de Maule. 



If Paon de Ruet was, as Kervyn supposes, a knight in 1327, 

 he may well have been born in the early years of the century. 

 Kervyn conjectures (15. 399) him to have been the son of Jean 

 de Ruet (f 1305), himself a son of Huon de Ruet. 



As to the name, Paon de Ruet, we find it as early as 1227 in a 

 legal document, in the form Paganus de Rodio.^ Now Rodium 

 is the mediaeval Latin form corresponding to the modern Roeulx, 

 or Le Roeulx, the name of a town of 3000 inhabitants, 8 miles 

 north-east of Mons,*^ on the highway leading from Mons to 

 Nivelle. It stands upon a hill, 400 feet above sea-level, in the 



not appear in the list of knights who accompanied the queen from 

 Hainaut, and there is no ground for supposing that he occupied a higher 

 status than WaUer Mauny, who was not knighted till 1331 {Diet. Nat. 

 Biog. 36. 76), though in high favor with Philippa from the first. He is 

 more likely to have been one of the 'pluissier jone esquier' mentioned 

 above. 



^Another manuscript says, with reference to the departure of the 

 Flemings (i. 194) : 'Messires Jehans de Haynau prist congiet, et s'en 

 parti o toute sa compagnie de Haynau, . . . et demora li jone royne 

 Phelippe a petite compagnie de son pays, formis ung jeune damoisiel que 

 on clamoit Watelet de Mauni, qui y demora pour servir et taillier devant 

 li.' The Walter Maun}- whose name will always be remembered in con- 

 nection with Philippa's intercession for the burghers of Calais appears 

 here as carving before his mistress at the table (cf. Prol. 100). He was 

 not knighted till four years later (Diet. Nat. Biog. 36. 76). 



'^Monuments (see below, p. 58, note 8) 2. 834-5. 



The representation of the Latin Paganus by Paon is not easy to under- 

 stand; yet, though it is customary to cite the name of Katharine's father 

 in modern books as Payne Roet, no form corresponding to Payne is 

 found in the fourteenth-century texts which mention him, so far as I am 

 aware. Such a form would of course be Paien(s), and this indeed occurs 

 in Paiens de Maisieres, designating a poet who flourished about 1200 

 (Hist. Litt. de la France 19. 722; 20. 68); the names of four crusading 

 knights who appear in the earlier French epics (Langlois, Table des 

 Nonis Propres dans les Chansons de Geste, p. 512) ; and that of Payen 

 d'Orleans (Geoffroi de Villehardouin, ed. Natalis de Wailly, pp. 6, 305, 

 etc.). 



" Not, as Kervyn de Lettenhove supposes, the French Roeulx, just north 

 of Bouchain. 



