jan 1, 1544 - beadman

Description:

These terms, and others of a similar kind, all have ‘bead’ as the first element, that is the Middle English word for prayer. That meaning was transferred to the small beads of the rosary by which prayers were counted, and those who said prayers for others were called beadsman, beadswoman or beadsfolk: they may have been paid to do that or have been resident in a bead-house or almshouse: 1454 <i>Lego facturæ cujusdam domus ... le Beydhous v marcas</i>, Whitkirk (SS30/177); 1465 <i>your well willers, servants, and bed folks</i> (PL15); 1485 <i>to the bedhowse beside the Magdalen, 3s 4d,</i> Bridlington (SS53/7); 1517 <i>your orator and dayly bedman, Thomas Drax</i>, Wombwell (YRS41/174); 1543 <i>shall kepe fyve beadfolkes in the Bedehouse at Ryther</i> (SS106/171); 1544 <i>sexe power beide men to have sexe blake gownes or white,</i> Frickley (SS106/211). The bead-roll was a list of persons to be prayed for: 1517 <i>I bequeath ... a coppe of velwet, and that my soull, my faders soull and my moders soull be upon the bedrowll to be praid for euermore,</i> Heptonstall (Clay49). In a letter dated <i>c.</i>1499 the writer German Pole signed himself <i>your good son and beadchild </i>(PL140) and <i>Jennet Rosse ... beadwoman ... in the Hospitall of Sancte Nicholas</i> in Pontefract, made her will in 1541 (Th19/37).

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