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BEADLE

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 571 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BEADLE , also BEDEL Or See also:

BEDELL (from A.S. bydel, from beodan, to hid), originally a subordinate officer of a See also:court or deliberative See also:assembly, who summoned persons to appear and See also:answer charges against them (see Du Cange, supra tit. Bedelli). As such, the beadle goes back to See also:early See also:Teutonic times; he was probably attached to the See also:moot as its messenger or summoner, being under the direction of the See also:reeve or See also:constable of the leet. After the See also:Norman See also:Conquest, the beadle seems to have diminished in importance, becoming merely the crier in the See also:manor and See also:forest courts, and sometimes executing processes. He was also employed as the messenger of the See also:parish, and thus became, to a certain extent, an ecclesiastical officer, but in reality acted more as a constable by keeping See also:order in the See also:church and See also:churchyard during service. He also attended upon the See also:clergy, the churchwardens and the See also:vestry. He was appointed by the parishioners in vestry, and his See also:wages were payable out of the church See also:rate. From the Poor See also:Law See also:Act of 1601 till the act of 1834 by which poor-law See also:administration was transferred to guardians, the beadle in See also:England was an officer of much importance in his capacity of See also:agent for the overseers. In all See also:medieval See also:universities the bedel was an officer who exercised various executive and spectacular functions (H. Rashdall, Hist. of Universities in the See also:Middle Ages, i. 193). He still survives in many universities on the See also:continent of See also:Europe and in those of See also:Oxford and See also:Cambridge, but he is now shorn of much of his importance.

At Oxford there are four bedels, representing the faculties of law, See also:

medicine, arts and divinity. Their duties are chiefly processional, the junior or sub-bedel being the See also:official attendant on the See also:vice-See also:chancellor, before whom he bears a See also:silver See also:mace. At Cambridge there are two, termed See also:esquire-bedels, who both walk before the vice-chancellor, bearing maces.

End of Article: BEADLE

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