RUTH 



PtKcinia praminu, but this U not fully iMirne oat 

 by closer inquiry. Runt does not ap|>ear to be very 

 injurious so long as ite attack is routined to the 

 leaves only, but it becomes a formidable |-t when 

 it attacks the inflorescence or ear ; the more so 

 because no effectual remedy can lie suggested for 

 it. Ever}- protospore is shed before tlie grain is 

 ripe, therefore steeping the seed is of no avail. 

 The application of any dressing to the noil appears 

 to be equally useless. White wheat is more subject 

 to be attacked by it than red, and some varieties 

 are hardly ever entirely free from it. The use of 

 rank manures is said to induce or aggravate the 

 disease. 



Kustam. See FIRDAUSL 



Kiistcliuk. a town of Bulgaria, stands on the 

 south hank of the Danube, opposite Giurgevo, 140 

 miles by rail NW. of Varna (on the Black Sea) 

 and 40 S. by W. of Bucharest. It has numerous 

 churches and mosques, and manufactures cloth, 

 shoes, pottery, gold and silver ornaments, and 

 furniture. Owing to its situation it possessed, 

 until ite fortifications were dismantled after 1877, 

 considerable strategic importance. It was cap- 

 tured by the Russians in 1810 and 1877, and 

 played a prominent part in the Itusso- Turkish 

 wars of 1773-90 and 1853-54. Pop. (1893) 28,121. 



Rustic Work is the name of that kind of 

 masonry in which the various stones or courses are 

 marked at the joints by splays or recesses. The 

 surface of the stone is sometimes left rough, and 

 sometimes polished or otherwise dressed. llu-tica- 

 tion is chiefly used in classical or Italian architec- 

 ture, although rustic Quoins (q.v.) are often used 

 in rough Gothic work. In the figure a and b show 



Rustication. 



forms of rustication usually applied to surfaces, c 

 and d show rustic quoins with mouldings on the 

 angles. 



Rlltacen% a natural order of exogenous plants, 

 consisting mostly of perennial or suffruticose species 

 rarely herbaceous. They are all found in the tem- 

 perate regions of the northern hemisphere, and are 

 abundant along the shores of the Mediterranean. 

 A bitter taste and powerful odour are general 

 characteristics. Rue (q.v. ) is a familiar example 

 of the order. 



Riitebeuf, or RUSTEBEUF, a great 13th-century 

 trouvere, of whose life we know but little, the dates 

 of his birth and death being both unknown. His 

 earliest extant poems are anterior to the final 

 crusade of St Louis ; his latest belong to the close 

 of the reign of Philippe le Hardi. He lived a 

 Bohemian life in Pan-, amid poverty, debt, and 

 constant distress, his miseries the fruit of an easy 

 temper, lavish habits, a passion for gambling, and 

 an unhappy marriage. His poems include chansons, 

 satiric and religious, but not amatory ; nuii/i/nniti x 

 of death, in the name of contemporary great men ; 

 animal anil moral allegories : dramatic monologues, 

 among them the Miracle de Thtophile, a clever 



drama of a compact concluded with the devil, from 

 the consequences of which the victim is saved by 

 the Virgin ; metrical lives of St Mar)' of Mgv pt 

 and St Elizabeth of Hungary ; and fabliaux, hill 

 of honi'-t gaiety. Hntelicuf was inspired by tin- 

 crusading fever, and took part in the gMt 

 quarrel between the Dominicans and the regular 

 clergy in the university of Pali-, some of his best 

 work Ix-ing his satires against the icligious ordeis, 

 the mendicant friars, Dominicans ami Minorites, 

 and indeed all clerics, students alone excepted. 

 His most striking qualities are strength, spirit, 

 and colour, and some of his satires reveal a touch- 

 ing note of peisnnality that reminds the reader of 

 Villon. 



Hia poems were edited by A. Kreswier ( Wolfenbiittel, 

 1885). See the study by Leon Cledat (1891) in Let 

 Urandi Ecrivaitu f'ranfau. 



Rlltfll. a Palestinian people, Arama-an or at 

 least Semitic, with whom the Kg\ptians waged 

 war under the 18th and 19th dynasties. See 

 EGYPT, Vol. IV. p. 240. 



Ruth, BOOK OF. The four chapters of this 

 canonical book tell how Huth, a young Moabitess, 

 after the early death of her Hebrew husband 

 Mahlon, for the sake of her mother-in-law Naomi 

 came to settle in Bethlehem, and there became tin- 

 wife of a 'near kinsman' (gufl), Boaz, and the 

 mother of Obed, grandfather of king David. The 

 story is placed 'in the days when the judges 



iudged ' (i. 1), al>ont a century before the time of 

 avid ; but on its own showing it was not written 

 till long after the events it describes (iv. 7). How 

 long afterwards is a question on which critics are 

 not agreed ; most of them consider it to lie exilic 

 (Ewald) or post-exilic ( Bertheau, Wellhausen, 

 Kuenen), mainly on the linguistic and genealogical 

 eMilfiice : but Driver (hilnxl. to Ola Testament, 

 1891 ) thinks that the general lieauty and purity of 

 the style, which stand on a level with the best 

 pan- ot Samuel, point rather to a date, which he 

 does not seek to fix more definitely, before the exile. 

 That the book was not received into the canon till 

 a very long time after the captivity is shown by ite 

 place in the original Hebrew, where it occurs as 

 one of the Hagiographa or 'writings' (see KIIII.K), 

 standing second among the live Megilloth or Festal 

 Rolls, between Canticles and Lamentations, a posi- 

 tion which proves that it did not become canonical 

 till after the series of ' former prophets,' extending 

 from Joshua to 2 Kings, had lx?en finally closed. 

 In the Septnagint, however, which gives it the 

 place it claims in the historical order, it come* 

 between Judges and Samuel, and the same order 

 is observed in the Vulgate and in the English 

 Authorised Version. That Josephus also must 

 have reckoned it as an appendix to Judges is 

 shown by his enumeration of the books of the Old 

 Testament as numbering only twenty-two. The 

 purpose of the book has been variously explained. 

 Some think that it was intended to inculcate the 

 duty of Levirate marriage ( Deut. xxv. 6-10, and >>< 

 M.MIRIAGE); to I his theory it is perhaps enough to 

 reply that Boaz was not Mahlon K brother, and that 

 David was never reckoned as the descendant of 

 Mahlon. But the story undoubtedly has a liearing 

 on the right*, duties, and privileges of ;/r ;.'//; or ' near 

 kinsmen,' if these be taken in a somewhat wider 

 sense. Others will have it that with the framers of 

 the canon the interest of the liook was chiefly genea- 

 logical. It certainly supplements the genealogy of 

 David as given in the older books; in 1 Samuel, 

 though relations with Moab are alluded to (xxii. 

 3), Ins ancestry is not traced l>eyond Jesse, and 

 that the tendency of later ages was to greater 

 amplification is shown incidentally by Matt. i. 5. 

 But perhaps this little idyll of upright happy life 



