Beadle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beadle was originally a title given to a Saxon officer who summoned householders to council. Contemporarily it refers to a parish constable; in the Scottish church one who attends the minister during divine service. A famous fictional constabular beadle is Mr Bumble from Charles Dickens' classic Oliver Twist.
In the context of collegiate universities in the United Kingdom (for example Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, and the University of London), a beadle means a person who performs varying duties and often represents the college to outsiders through wearing a uniform and providing information.
The term "beadle" (in Hebrew: shammash or "sexton") also refers to the gabbai, the caretaker or "man of all work," in a synagogue. Moshe the Beadle, the caretaker of a synagogue in Sighet in the 1940s, is an important character in Night by Elie Wiesel.
John McLaughlin, the sometimes mischievous host of The McLaughlin Group, used to call former panelist Fred Barnes "The Beadle", for reasons best known to himself. McLaughlin's use of the term may well derive from his experience as a Jesuit, since the term "Beadle" (Latin, "bidellus") is used to refer to a student officer appointed by the master in each class to perform certain tasks in the classroom, such as answering the door, distributing materials, and speaking for the class.
- Further information: Gabbai and Shamash#Shamash in Judaism
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from The Modern World Encyclopædia: Illustrated (1935); out of UK copyright as of 2005.
