Burgundy about 985, and was in turn an inmate of the monasteries of St Leger at Champeaux and St Bénigne at Dijon, afterwards entering the famous abbey of Cluny, and becoming a monk at St Germain at Auxerre before 1039. He also appears to have visited Italy. His Historiarum sui temporis libri V., dedicated to St Odilon, abbot of Cluny, purports to be a universal history from 900 to 1044; but is an irregular narration of events in France and Burgundy. Rudolph was a strong believer in the approaching end of the world.
The Historiarum was first printed in 1596, and published by A. Duchesne in the Historiae Francorum Scriptores, tome iv. (Paris, 1639–49). Extracts are printed in the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Band vii.; but perhaps the best edition of the work is the one edited by M. Prou in the Collection de textes pour servir à l'étude et l'enseignement de l'histoire (Paris, 1886). Rudolph also wrote a Vita S. Gulielmi, abbatis S. Benigni, published by J. Mabillon in the Acta Sanctorum, tome vi. (Paris, 1668).
See A. Molinier, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, tome ii. (Paris, 1902); and A. Potthast, Bibliotheca historica (Berlin, 1896).
RUDOLSTADT, a town of Germany, capital of the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, and the chief residence of the prince, lies on the left bank of the Saale, 18 m. S.W. of Jena, by the railway Grossheringen-Saalfeld, in one of the most beautiful districts of Thuringia. Pop. (1905) 12,494. The picturesque town is a favourite tourist resort. Besides containing the government buildings of the little principality, Rudolstadt is well provided with schools and other institutions, including a library of 65,000 volumes. The residence of the prince is the Heidecksburg, a palace on an eminence 200 ft. above the Saale, which was rebuilt after a fire in 1735, and contains a picture gallery, a magnificent banqueting hall and a library. The Ludwigsburg, another palace in the town, built in 1742, accommodates the natural history collections belonging to the prince. The principal church dates from the end of the 15th century and contains tombs and effigies of many former princes. In the Anger, a public park between the town and the river, is the theatre. The Rudolsbad—a handsome hydropathic establishment with a richly decorated interior—lying amidst extensive grounds, is also noticeable. Various memorials in and near the town commemorate the visits of Schiller to the neighbourhood in 1787 and 1788. The industries of the place include the manufacture of porcelain, chocolate and dye-stuffs, wool-spinning and bell-founding.
The name of Rudolstadt occurs in an inventory of the possessions of the abbey of Hersfeld in the year 800. After passing into the possession of the German kings and then of the rulers of Orlamünde and of Weimar, it came into the hands of the counts of Schwarzburg in 1335. Its civic rights were confirmed in 1404, and since 1599 it has been the residence of the ruling house of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.
See Renovanz, Chronik von Rudolstadt (Rudolstadt, 1860); Anemüller, Geschichtsbilder aus der Vergangenheit Rudolstadts (Rudolstadt, 1888); and Woerl, Rudolstadt (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1890).
RUDRA (probably from the root rud, “to howl,” hence “the howler”), in Hindu Vedic mythology, a storm god, and father of the Maruts who are frequently called Rudriyas. He shoots tempests at the earth, but is not essentially a malevolent deity, being invoked as a protector of cattle. In the Atharvaveda he is lord of life and death, and in later Hinduism one of the Hindu trinity, the god Siva.
See A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897); Sir William Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, iv. 299–420.
RUE (Fr. rue, Lat. ruta, from Gr. ῥυτή, the Peloponnesian word for the plant known as πήγανον), the name of a woody or bushy herb, belonging to the genus Ruta, especially Ruta graveolens, the “common rue,” a plant with bluish green spotted leaves and greenish yellow flowers. It has a strong pungent smell and the leaves have a bitter taste. The plant was much used in medieval and later medicine as a stimulative and irritant drug. It was commonly supposed to be much used by witches. From its association with “rue,” sorrow, repentance (O. Eng. hréow, from hréowan, to be sorry for, cf. Ger. reuen), the plant was also known as “herb of grace,” and was taken as the symbol of repentance.
RUEDA, LOPE DE (1510?–1565?), Spanish dramatist, was born early in the 16th century at Seville, where, according to Cervantes, he worked as a metal-beater. His name first occurs in 1554 as acting at Benavente, and between 1558 and 1561 he was manager of a strolling company which visited Segovia, Seville, Toledo, Madrid, Valencia and Córdova. In the last-named city Rueda fell ill, and on the 21st of March 1565 made a will which he was too exhausted to sign; he probably died shortly afterwards, and is said by Cervantes to have been buried in Córdova cathedral. He was twice married; first to a disreputable actress named Mariana, who became the mistress of the duke de Medinaceli; and second to Rafaela Angela, who bore him a daughter. His works were issued posthumously in 1567 by Timoneda, who toned down certain passages in the texts. Rueda’s more ambitious plays are mostly adapted from the Italian; in Eufemia he draws on Boccaccio, in Medora he utilizes Giancarli’s Zingara, in Armelina he combines Raineri’s Attilia with Cecchi’s Servigiale, and in Los Engañados he uses Gl’Ingannati, a comedy produced by the Intronati, a literary society at Siena. These follow the original so closely that they give no idea of Rueda’s talent; but in his pasos or prose interludes he displays an abundance of riotous humour, great knowledge of low life, and a most happy gift of dialogue. His predecessors mostly Wrote for courtly audiences or for the study; Rueda with his strollers created a taste for the drama which he was able to gratify, and he is admitted both by Cervantes and Lope de Vega to be the true founder of the national theatre.
His works have been reprinted by the marquis de la Fuensanta del Valle in the Colección de libros raros ó curiosos, vols. xxiii. and xxiv.
RUEIL, a town of N. France, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, at the W. foot of Mt Valérien, 6 m. W. of Paris by tramway. Pop. (1906) 10,439. Rueil has a church rebuilt under Napoleon III. in exact imitation of a previous church in the Renaissance style, and containing the tombs of the Empress Josephine and her daughter Hortense de Beauharnais. In the 17th century Richelieu built a chateau which no longer exists. Rueil has important photographic works and manufactures of lime and cement, &c. Close to the town is the château of Malmaison, a building of the 18th century famous as the residence of the empress Josephine. It was afterwards occupied by Maria Christina, queen of Spain, and by the empress Eugénie. In 1900 the owner, Daniel Osiris, presented it and the park to the nation; the apartments have been as far as possible restored to the condition in which they were when inhabited by Josephine and Napoleon.
RUFF, a bird so called from the very beautiful and remarkable frill of elongated feathers that, just before the breeding-season, grow thickly round the neck of the male, who is considerably larger than the female, known as the reeve. In many respects this species, the Tringa pugnax of Linnaeus and the Machetes pugnax of modern ornithologists, is one of the most singular in existence. The best account is that given in 1813 by G. Montagu (Suppl. Orn. Dictionary), who seems to have been struck by the peculiarities of the species, and, to investigate them, visited the fens of Lincolnshire, possibly excited thereto by the example of T. Pennant, whose information, collected there in 1769, was of a kind to provoke further inquiry, while Daniel (Rural Sports, iii. p. 234) had added some other particulars, and subsequently G. Graves in 1816 repeated in the same district the experience of his predecessors. Since that time the great changes produced by the drainage of the fen-country have banished this species from nearly the whole of it, so that R. Lubbock (Obs. Fauna of Norfolk, pp. 68-73) and H. Stevenson (Birds of Norfolk, ii. pp. 261–271) can alone be cited as modern witnesses of its habits in England, while the trade of netting or snaring ruffs and fattening them for the table has for many years practically ceased.
The cock bird, when, to use the fenman’s expression, he has
