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Dear Lois,
Thanks for your kind words and you are certainly most welcome.
This Flemish connection has been ferreted out over a long period of time. For me personally, the old stories about the origins of the Rutherfords have always looked like obvious fabrications. Each and every one of these stories from "King Ruther" to "Rue the Ford" has born so few verifiable facts that I just knew there had to be a genuine “genesis story” for the Clan Rutherford. First, I began by making a detailed study of each and every Scottish family that had ever signed a charter, marriage contract, agreement of manrent or whatever would give a documented paper trail between 1140 and 1498. These included such families as the de Rydel, de Percy, de Morville, de Normanville, de Stutteville, de Vaux, de Neufmarché, de Valoniis, de Lucy, de Lacy, de Insula, de Ghent and of course the Douglas family. The Rutherfords always follow the Douglases……….in Flanders and in Scotland.
In Flanders, the familial relations center around these 5 groups – all of whom later came to Britain:
1 - Hacket - Hackett - Ridelsford - Ridelisford - Ritterford - Rutherford
2 - Harnes
3 - Wavrin - Beaufremetz [Beaumetz] - de Fournes [Furness] - Bailleul [Balliol]
4 - Bethune [Beaton] - Lille [Lyle]
5 - Petheghem - Pethegem - de Cysoing
I’m an ethnologist and ethno-historian by training, so I simply began to apply “the method” we so often use to study non-western cultures on the Rutherfords. It became very clear that all of these Scottish families had Flemish connections. Even families with names like de Normanville were actually Flemish immigrants from West Flanders who had been resettled in Normandy and Brittany.
The Normans, as you know, were excellent at conquering but knew nothing about administering the lands which they conquered. For this they looked to the descendants of Charlemagne, the Frankish nobility of Flanders. Like the Scots-Irish on the American frontier, the Flemings were perfectly suited for the task at hand. They were very experienced at laying sieges, building castles, running armadas and managing large coordinated human efforts ……… like invasions. So William the Conqueror was wise in his use of Flemish archers and mounted knights but even wiser in later placing these families in “wild areas” like Ireland and along the Welsh and Scottish Marches.
Fortunately, these same Flemings were also among the first to use both surnames and heraldry. While chasing the etymologies of the name Rutherford and their ethnic origins I became aware of the work of Paul Vandewalle of Ruddervoorde, Belgium. At about the same time, Albert Rutherford of Ireland who posts here at the forum mentioned that he had run into an intriguing town in Belgium called Ruddervoorde. This seemed like a good omen, so I got in touch with Paul Vandewalle. He is the local historian in Ruddervoorde and a retired school teacher. Paul has written a book on the life of Sir Gerard de Ridefort [aka Sir Gerard van Ruddervoorde] and was kind enough to send me a copy. We began to exchange data on Ruddervoorde vs Rutherford and became convinced that the family of “Van Ruddervoorde” is the same family as “de Rodyrforde” in Britain.
The Van Ruddervoorde family was a large and powerful Flemish clan, but tellingly disappeared from Flanders at the same time the “Rutherfords” showed up in Britain. By the way, Ruddervoorde is about 10 km south of Brugge (Bruges) and 20 km north of Kortrijk (Courttrai). In 1977 an amalgamation took place and Ruddervoorde, along with Waardamme and Hertsberghe, became part of Oostkamp. so if you want to look it up, you have to search under Oostkamp.
Last year Paul wrote his "Van Ruddervoorde naar Rutherford" for the local historical society in Ruddervoorde, Belgium. It’s a combination of his field study in Flanders and Scotland and data from me on the Rutherfords of Roxburghshire. It was an honor to participate in this ground breaking new work. Paul very kindly dedicated the book to me and hoped it would encourage future research into this area………which it has! We all owe a big ‘thank you!’ to Paul Vandewalle and Albert Rutherford for their ability to think out side of the box.
til later ….. Gary
-- -- --
Paul Vandewalle
"Gerard de Ridefort"
Ruddervoorde, Belgium: Heemkundige Kring, 1998
Paul Vandewalle
"Van Ruddervoorde naar Rutherford"
Ruddervoorde, Belgium: Heemkundige Kring, 2003
Kenneth Rutherford Davis
"The Rutherfords in Britain: a history and guide"
Alan Sutton Publishing
Gloucester, England 1987
Gary Rutherford Harding, Ph.D.
"The Rutherfords of Roxburghshire" – 6th edition
Alemao Press 2002
Seattle, Washington
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