e Taal.] sees phonetic
difficulties and prefers to regard ruiter as belonging rather to
ruiten, to uproot. The application of the name up-rooter to a lawless
mercenary is not unnatural.

But whatever be the ultimate origin of this Dutch and German military
word, it is sufficiently obvious that it cannot have given an English
surname which is already common in the thirteenth century. There is a
much earlier claimant in the field.

The New English Dictionary has roter (1297), var. rotour, rotor, and
router (1379), a lawless person, robber, ruffian, from Old Fr. rotier
(routier), and also the form rutar, used by Philemon Holland, who, in
his translation of Camden's Britannia (1610), says "That age called
foraine and willing souldiours rutars." The reference is to King
John's mercenaries, c. 1215. Fr, routier, a mercenary, is usually
derived from route, a band, Lat. rupta, a piece broken off, a
detachment. References to the grander routes, the great mercenary
bands which overran France in the fourteenth century, are common in
French history. But the word was popularly, and naturally, connected
with route, Lat. (via) rupta, a highway, so that Godefroy [Footnote:
Dictionnaire de rancien Francais.] separates routier, a vagabond,
from routier, a bandit soldier. Cotgrave has--

"Routier, an old traveller, one that by much trotting up and down is
grown acquainted with most waies; and hence, an old beaten souldier;
one whom a long practise hath made experienced in, or absolute master
of, his profession; and (in evill part) an old crafty fox, notable
beguiler, ordinary deceiver, subtill knave; also, a purse-taker, or a
robber by the high way side."

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, rutha