beadle (bedl)

[Early mod. E. also bedle, beedle (Sc. beddal ), It shall be the duty of the faculty to appoint a college beadle , who shall direct the proce ion on Commencement day, and preserve order during the exhibitions. Laws of Yale College , 1837. 4. In England, a parish officer having various subordinate duties, such as keeping order in church, punishing petty offenders, waiting on the clergyman, attending meetings of vestry or se ion, etc. And I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love's whip; A very beadle to a humorous sigh, A critic; nay, a night-watch constable. before the Reformation, the list of the persons and objects for which prayers were said, read out by the preacher before the sermon. In "an order [of Henry VIII., A. D. 1534] taken for preaching and bidding of the beads, in all sermons to be made within this realm," mention is made of the church catholic, especially in England, of the king and royal family, of the bishops and clergy, of the nobility and entire temporalty (laity) of the kingdom, particularly of such as the preacher's devotion may prompt him to name, and of the souls of the faithful departed. The bead-roll was prohibited by Edward VI. in 1548. It has often been supposed by later writers to have had something to do with the recital of the beads or rosary. 2. Figuratively, any list or catalogue; a long series. Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, On Fames eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled. Spenser, F. Q., IV. ii. 32. Neither is the Scripture without a pitiful beadrow of miserable torments. Bullinger's Decades , 1587 (trans. Parker Soc.). Prior , Alma, iii. The bead - roll of her vicious tricks. 3. A rosary.-4. [