There is another Ger. Reuter, a trooper, which has given the sixteenth-century Eng. rutter, but not as a surname. The word appears in German about 1500, i.e. rather late for the surname period, and comes from Du. ruiter, a mercenary trooper. The German for trooper is Reiter, really the same word as Ritter, a knight, the two forms having been differentiated in meaning; cf. Fr. cavalier, a trooper, and chevalier, a knight. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Ger. Reiter was confused with, and supplanted by, this borrowed word Reuter, which was taken to mean rider, and we find the cavalry called Reuterei well into the eighteenth century. As a matter of fact the two words are quite unrelated, though the origin of Du. ruiter is disputed.
The New English Dictionary gives, from the year 1506, rutter (var. ruter, ruiter), a cavalry soldier, especially German, from Du. ruiter, whence Ger. Reuter, as above. It connects the Dutch word with medieval Lat. rutarius, i.e. ruptarius, which is also Kluge's view. [Footnote: Deutsches Etymologisches Wrterbuch.] But Franck [Footnote: Etymologisch Woordenboek der Nederlandsche 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 Français.] 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, 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.)