Ciillural and Artistic Antecedents : Clairvaux 347 



With respect to the relation between Ruth well and Rievaulx, 

 it is to be observed that the spelling Ruthwell is by no means the 

 earliest known, that the local pronunciation of Ruthwell is Rivvel, 

 and that the local pronunciation of Rievaulx is Rivers, which would 

 earlier have been Rivel or Rivvel. 



Rievaulx was named from the river Rie, and hence called by the 

 Latin name of RievaHis. It was founded, as we have seen above, by 

 Walter Espec, with the consent of Archbishop Thurstan of York, 

 King Henry I, and Pope Innocent II, its first monks having come 

 from Clairvaux {Clara Valiis) in 1128.^ The Liber de Metros, under the 

 year 1136, speaks of the monks de Rievalle^ ; and in the Rievaidx 

 Chartulary the following spellings occur in the first half of the 13th 

 century : Rievahe (5 times), Rivall (3 times), RyevaU (twice), Ryvall 

 (once), RevaU (once), Ryvaus (once). Ryevall also occurs in 1334, 

 Ryvall in 1251, 1278, and 1306, RevaU in 1315. Other speUings 

 are such as these : River, Rywax, Riwaxe, Rivaux, Ryvaulx, Ryvax.^ 



The link between Rievaulx and RuthweU is to be found in the 

 person of Robert de Bruce II (1078 ? — 1141) a companion of David I 

 at the court of Henry, to whom the former granted, ca. 1124, Annan- 

 dale — a tract somewhat difficult to define, but certainly including 

 Ruthwell. 



None of those English settlers were more personally dear to the King, 

 none left a name more illustrious than the Bruces. They had been 

 settled in Yorkshire since the Conquest, and without quitting his York- 

 shire baronies, Robert Bruce accepted from the king of Scots, his friend 

 and brother in arms, the Valley of Annandale, which he soon had erected 

 into a forest, marching with Nithsdale on the one hand, the Valley of 

 Clyde on the other, and stretching eastward till it met the Royal Forest 

 of Selkirk — an immense territory, even yet thinly peopled, but well 

 suited for the great game of the forest, the deer and the wild boar, to 

 which its new owners devoted it.^ 



He received from David I a grant of Annandale, then called Strath 

 Annent, by a charter c. 1124. ... It was bounded by the lands of 

 Dunegal, of Strathnith (Nithsdale), and those of Ranulf de Meschines, 



^ John of Hexham, in Raine, Priory of Hexham 1. 108 ; Ailred of Rievaulx, 

 inHowlett. Chronicle (Rolls Series) 3. 183-4 ; Carfidnrinm Ahhathice de Rievalle, 

 p. 21. 



2 Raine, op. cit. 1. 169, note. 



^ Cart., pp. civ-cvii. 



* Facsimiles of Nat. Manuscripts of Scotland 1. ix ; cf. Lawrie, Early 

 Scottish Charters, p. 307, and pp. 102, 103, above. 



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