BEADLE  , also BEDEL Or

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

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

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