[1] M. D'Avezac Has Refuted The Common Supposition That This Admirable Traveller Was A Native Of Brabant.

The form Rubruquis of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its use by Hakluyt and Purchas.

The former, who first published the narrative, professedly printed from an imperfect MS. belonging to the Lord Lumley, which does not seem to be now known. But all the MSS. collated by Messrs. Francisque-Michel and Wright, in preparing their edition of the Traveller, call him simply Willelmus de Rubruc or Rubruk.

Some old authors, apparently without the slightest ground, having called him Risbroucke and the like, it came to be assumed that he was a native of Ruysbroeck, a place in South Brabant.

But there is a place still called Rubrouck in French Flanders. This is a commune containing about 1500 inhabitants, belonging to the Canton of Cassel and arrondissement of Hazebrouck, in the Department du Nord. And we may take for granted, till facts are alleged against it, that this was the place from which the envoy of St. Lewis drew his origin. Many documents of the Middle Ages, referring expressly to this place Rubrouck, exist in the Library of St. Omer, and a detailed notice of them has been published by M. Edm. Coussemaker, of Lille. Several of these documents refer to persons bearing the same name as the Traveller, e.g., in 1190, Thierry de Rubrouc; in 1202 and 1221, Gauthier du Rubrouc; in 1250, Jean du Rubrouc; and in 1258, Woutermann de Rubrouc. It is reasonable to suppose that Friar William was of the same stock. See Bulletin de la Soc. de Geographie, 2nd vol. for 1868, pp. 569-570, in which there are some remarks on the subject by M. d'Avezac; and I am indebted to the kind courtesy of that eminent geographer himself for the indication of this reference and the main facts, as I had lost a note of my own on the subject.

It seems a somewhat complex question whether a native even of French Flanders at that time should be necessarily claimable as a Frenchman;[A] but no doubt on this point is alluded to by M. d'Avezac, so he probably had good ground for that assumption. [See also Yule's article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Rockhill's Rubruck, Int., p. xxxv. - H. C.]

That cross-grained Orientalist, I. J. Schmidt, on several occasions speaks contemptuously of this veracious and delightful traveller, whose evidence goes in the teeth of some of his crotchets. But I am glad to find that Professor Peschel takes a view similar to that expressed in the text: "The narrative of Ruysbroek [Rubruquis], almost immaculate in its freedom from fabulous insertions, may be indicated on account of its truth to nature as the greatest geographical masterpiece of the Middle Ages." (Gesch. der Erdkunde, 1865, p. 151.)

[A] The County of Flanders was at this time in large part a fief of the French Crown.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 173 of 655
Words from 90359 to 90870 of 342071