It is impossible to determine the relative shares of route, a band, and route, a highway, in this definition, but there has probably been natural confusion between two words, separate in meaning, though etymologically identical. Now our thirteenth-century rotors and rulers may represent Old Fr. routier, and have been names applied to a mercenary soldier or a vagabond. But this cannot be considered certain. If we consult du Cange, [Footnote: Glossarium ad Scriptures medics et inflows Latinitatis.] we find, s.v. rumpere, "ruptarii, pro ruptuarii, quidam praedones sub xi saeculum, ex rusticis. . . collecti ac conflati," which suggests connection with "ruptuarius, colonus qui agrum seu terram rumpit, proscindit, colic," i.e. that the ruptarii, also called rutarii, rutharii, rotharii, rotarii, etc., were so named because they were revolting peasants, i.e. men connected with the roture, or breaking of the soil, from which we get roturier, a plebeian. That would still connect our Rutters with Lat. rumpere, but by a third road. Finally, Old French has one more word which seems to me quite as good a candidate as any of the others, viz. roteur, a player on the rote, i.e. the fiddle used by the medieval minstrels, Chaucer says of his Frere-- "Wel koude he synge and playen on a rote." (A, 236.) The word is possibly of Celtic origin (Welsh crwth) and a doublet of the archaic crowd, or crowth, a fiddle. Both rote and crowth are used by Spenser. Crowd is perhaps not yet obsolete in dialect, and the fiddler in Hudibras is called Crowdero. Thus Rutter may be a doublet of Crowther. There may be other possible etymologies for Rutter, but those discussed will suffice to show that the origin of occupative names is not always easily guessed. Since the above was written I have found strong evidence for the "fiddler" derivation of the name. In 1266 it was decided by a Lancashire jury that Richard le Harper killed William le Roter, or Ruter, in self-defence. I think there can be little doubt that some, if not all, of our Rutters owe their names to the profession represented by this enraged musician. William le Citolur and William le Piper also appear from the same record (Patent Rolls) to have indulged in homicide in the course of the year. CHAPTER XVII. THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS "In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage, To Caunterbury with ful devout corage, At nyght were come into that hostelrye Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde." (Prologue, 1. 20.)