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with the enemy; and that the said officers should enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities secured to the Third class of the said order. (Observations in- | troductory to an Historical Essay upon the Knighthood of the Bath, by John Anstis, Esq. 4to. Lond. 1725; Selden's Titles of Honour, fol. Lond. 1672, pp. 678, 679; Camden's Britannia, fol. Lond. 1637, p. 172; Sandford's Genealog. Hist. fol. 1707, pp. 267, 431, 501, 562, 578; J. C. Dithmari, Commentatio de Honoratissimo Ordine de Balneo, fol. Franc. ad. Viad. 1729; Mrs. S. S. Banks's Collections on the Order of the Bath, MSS. Brit. Mus.; Statutes of the Order of the Bath, 4to. Lond. 1725, repr. with additions in 1812; Bulletins of the Campaign of 1815, pp. 1-18.)

BAWDY-HOUSES. [PROSTITUTION.] BEACON, a sign ordinarily raised upon some foreland or high ground as a sea-mark. It is also used for the firesignal which was formerly set up to alarm the country upon the approach of a foreign enemy. The word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon beacen or beacn, a sign or signal. Beac or bec is the real root, which we still have in beck, beckon. Fires by night, as signals, to convey the notice of danger to distant places with the greatest expedition, have been used in many countries. They are mentioned in the prophecies of Jeremiah, who (chap. vi. ver. 1) says, "Set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem, for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction." In the treatise De Mundo, attributed to Aristotle, it is said (edit. 12mo. Glasg. 1745, p. 35) that fire-signals were so disposed on watchtowers through the king of Persia's dominions, that within the space of a day he could receive intelligence of any disturbances in the most distant part of his dominions; but this is evidently an exaggerated statement. Eschylus, in his play of the Agamemnon, represents the intelligence of the capture of Troy as conveyed to the Peloponnesus by fire-beacons. During the Peloponnesian war we find firebeacons (pUKTO) employed. (Thucyd. iii. 22.) Pliny distinguishes this sort of signal from the Phari, or light-houses placed upon the coasts for the direction of ships, by the name of "Ignes prænun

tiativi," notice-giving fires. (Plin. Hist. Nat. edit. Harduin, ii. 73.)

Lord Coke, in his Fourth Institute, chap. xxv., speaking of our own beacons, says, "Before the reign of Edward III. they were but stacks of wood set up on high places, which were fired when the coming of enemies was descried; but in his reign pitch-boxes, as now they be, were, instead of those stacks, set up: and this properly is a beacon." These beacons had watches regularly kept at them, and horsemen called hobbelars were stationed by most of them to give notice in day-time of an enemy's approach, when the fire would not be scen. (Camden, Brit. in Hampshire, edit. 1789, vol. i. p. 173.)

Stow, in his Annals, under the year 1326, mentions among the precautions which Edward II. took when preparing against the return of the queen and Mortimer to England, that "he ordained bikenings or beacons to be set up, that the same being fired might be seen far off, and thereby the people to be raised."

The Cottonian MS. in the British Museum, Augustus I. vol. i. art. 31, preserves a plan of the harbours of Poole, Purbeck, &c., followed, art. 33, by a chart of the coast of Dorsetshire from Lyme to Weymouth, both exhibiting the beacons which were erected on the Dorsetshire coast against the Spanish invasion in 1588. Art. 58 preserves a similar chart of the coast of Suffolk from Orwell Haven to Gorlston near Yarmouth, with the several forts and beacons erected on that coast.

The power of erecting beacons was originally in the king, and was usually delegated to the Lord High Admiral. In the eighth of Elizabeth an act passed touching sea-marks and mariners (chap. 13), by which the corporation of the Trinity House of Deptford Strond were empowered to erect beacons and sea-marks on the shores, forelands, &c. of the country according to their discretion, and to continue and renew the same at the cost of the corporation. [TRINITY HOUSE.]

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Professor Ward, in his Observations on the Antiquity and Use of Beacons in England' (Archæologia, vol. i. p. 4), says, the money due or payable for the maintenance of beacons was called Beconagium,

and was levied by the sheriff of the county upon each hundred, as appears by an ordinance in manuscript for the county of Norfolk, issued to Robert de Monte and Thomas de Bardolfe, who sat in parliament as barons, 14th Edward II.

The manner of watching the beacons, particularly upon the coast, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, may be gathered from the instructions of two contemporary manuscripts printed in the Archaologia, col. viii. pp. 100, 183. The surprise of those by the sea-side was usually a matter of policy with an invading enemy, to prevent the alarm of an arrival from being spread.

as Lord Coke informs us in his Fourth Institute, was an officer who not only warned the forest courts and executed process, but made all proclamations.

It appears from the Reports of the Commissioners of Corporation Inquiry (1835), that inferior officers, called Beadles, were appointed in forty-four boroughs out of upwards of two hundred visited by the commissioners.

Bishop Kennett, in the Glossary to his Parochial Antiquities of Oxfordshire, says that rural deans had formerly their beadles to cite the clergy and church officers to visitations and execute the orders of the court Christian. Parochial and church beadles were probably in their origin persons of this description, though now employed in more menial services.

Bedel, or Beadle, is also the name of an officer in the English universities, who in processions, &c. precedes the chancellor or vice-chancellor, bearing a mace. In Oxford there are three esquire and three yeomen bedels, each attached to the respective faculties of divinity, medicine and arts, and law. In Cambridge there are three esquire bedels and one

An iron beacon or fire-pot may still be seen standing upon the tower of Hadley Church in Middlesex. Gough, in his edition of Camden, fol. 1789, vol. iii. p. 281, says, at Ingleborough, in Yorkshire, on the west edge, are remains of a beacon, ascended to by a flight of steps, and ruins of a watch-house. Collinson, in his History of Somersetshire, 4to. 1791, vol. ii. p. 5, describes the fire-hearths of four large beacons as remaining in his time upon a hill called Dunkery Beacon in that county. He also mentions the remains of a watch-yeoman bedel. The esquire bedels in house for a beacon at Dundry (vol. ii. p. 105). Beacon-hills occur in some part or other of most counties of England which have elevated ground. The Herefordshire beacon is well known. Gough, in his additions to Camden, ut supr. vol. i. p. 394, mentions a beacon hill at Harescombe in Gloucestershire, inclosed by a transverse vallation fifty feet deep. Salmon, in his History of Hertfordshire, p. 349, says, at Therfield, on a hill west of the church, stood one of the four beacons of this county.

BEADLE, the messenger or apparitor of a court, who cites persons to appear to what is alleged against them. It is probably in this sense that we are to understand the bedelli, or under-bailiffs of manors, mentioned in several parts of the Domesday Survey. Spelman, Somner, and Watts all agree in the derivation of beadle from the Saxon bydel, a crier, and that from bis, to publish, as in bidding the banns of matrimony. The bedelli of manors probably acted as criers in the lord's court. The beadle of a forest, |

the university of Cambridge, beside attending the vice-chancellor on public solemnities, attend also the professors and respondents, collects fines and penalties, and summon to the chancellor's court all members of the senate. (Ducange's Gloss. in voce Bedellus; Kennet, Paroch. Antiq. vol. ii. Gloss.; Gen. Introd. to Domesday Book, 8vo. edit. vol. i. p. 247; Camb. and Oxf. Univ. Calendars.)

BED OF JUSTICE. This expression (lit de justice) literally denoted the seat or throne upon which the king of France was accustomed to sit when personally present in parliaments, and from this original meaning the expression came, in course of time, to signify the parliament itself. Under the ancient monarchy of France, a Bed of Justice denoted a solemn session of the king in the parliament, for the purpose of registering or promulgating edicts or ordinances. According to the principle of the old French constitution, the authority of the parliament, being derived entirely from the crown, ceased when the king was present; and

BEDCHAMBER, LORDS OF. [335] BEDCHAMBER, LORDS OF.

consequently all ordinances enrolled at a bed of justice were acts of the royal will, and of more authenticity and effect than decisions of parliament. The cere mony of holding a bed of justice was as follows:-The king was seated on the throne, and covered; the princes of the blood-royal, the peers, and all the several chambers were present. The marshals of France, the chancellor, and the other great officers of state stood near the throne, around the king. The chancellor, or in his absence the keeper of the seals, declared the object of the session, and the persons present then deliberated upon it. The chancellor then collected the opinions of the assembly, proceeding in the order of their rank; and afterwards declared the determination of the king in the following words: "Le roi, en son lit de justice, à ordonné et ordonne qu'il sera procédé à l'enregistrement des lettres sur lesquelles on à délibéré." The last bed of justice was assembled by Louis XVI. at Versailles, on the 6th of August, 1788, at the commencement of the French revolution, and was intended to enforce upon the parliament of Paris the adoption of the obnoxious taxes, which had been previously proposed by Calonne at the Assembly of Notables. The resistance to this measure led to the assembly of the States-General, and ultimately to the Revolution.

BEDCHAMBER, LORDS OF THE, are officers of the royal household under the groom of the stole. The number of lords, in the reign of William IV., was twelve, who waited a week each in turn. The groom of the stole does not take his turn of duty, but attends his majesty on all state occasions. There were thirteen grooms of the bedchamber who waited likewise in turn. The salary of the groom of the stole was 2000l. per annum, of the lords 10007. each, and of the grooms 500l. The salaries of all officers of the royal household are paid out of a fund appropriated for this purpose in the Civil List, and which is fixed by 1 Vict. c. 2, at 131,260l. per annum.

Chamberlayne, in his Present State of England,' 12mo. 1669, p 249, calls them gentlemen of the bedchamber. The gentlemen of the Bedchamber," he says,

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"consist usually of the prime nobility of England. Their office in general is, each one in his turn, to wait a week in every quarter in the king's bedchamber, there to lie by the king on a pallet-bed all night, and in the absence of the groom of the stole to supply his place." In the edition of the same work published in 1716, he adds, "Moreover, they wait upon the king when he eats in private; for then the cup-bearers, carvers, and sewers do not wait. This high office, in the reign of a queen, as in her late majesty's, is performed by ladies, as also that of the grooms of the bedchamber, who were called bedchamber women, and were five in number." At present there are in the queen's household, taking their turns of periodical duty, seven ladies of the bedchamber and eight bedchamber women. There are also a principal lady of the bedchamber and an extra lady of the bedchamber. Both the ladies of the bedchamber and the bedchamber women are allied to the nobility. In the household of the prince consort there are two lords of the bedchamber.

The title of lords of the bedchamber appears to have been adopted after the accession of the House of Hanover. They are first mentioned by that title in Chamberlayne's State of England' for 1718.

The question whether the ladies of the bedchamber should be regarded as political offices in the hands of the minister, or whether the appointment should depend upon the personal favour of the queen, formed an important feature in the ministerial crisis which took place in May, 1839. The government of Lord Melbourne had been defeated, and Sir Robert Peel was sent for by the Queen to form a new administration, and on proposing to consult her majesty on the subject of the principal appointments held by ladies in the royal household, her Majesty informed him that it was her pleasure to reserve those appointments, conceiving the interference of the minister " to be contrary to usage," while she added it was certainly “repugnant to her feelings." Sir R. Peel being thus denied the advantage of a public demonstration of her Majesty's "full support and confidence," resigned the task of

forming a cabinet, and the former minis- | ters were sent for, when they held a council and came to the following resolution, which is likely to settle the question on future occasions: "That for the purpose of giving to the administration that character of efficiency and stability and those marks of the constitutional support of the crown which are required to enable it to act usefully to the public service, it is reasonable that the great officers of the court, and situations in the household held by members of parliament, should be included in the political arrangements made in a change of the administration: but they (the ex-ministers) are not of opinion that a similar principle should be applied or extended to the offices held by ladies in her Majesty's household." The defeated ministry was then reinstated.

BEDE-HOUSE, a term used for an alms-house. Hence, bedes-man, or beadsman, a person who resides in a bedehouse, or is supported from the funds appropriated for this purpose. The master of St. Katherine's Hospital, London, in the Regent's Park, has the right of appointing a number of non-resident pensioners on that foundation, who are termed bedesmen and bedeswomen. In the recently abolished Court of Exchequer in Scotland, the term bedesman, beadman, or beidman, was used to denote that class of paupers who enjoy the royal bounty. Bede is the Anglo-Saxon word for prayer, and as almsmen were bound to pray for the founder of the charity, they were hence called beadsmen. Sir Walter Scott describes the king's beadsmen as an order of paupers to whom the kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinance of the Roman Catholic church, and who were expected, in return, to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state.

BEGGAR. [MENDICITY.] BENEFICE (from the Latin Beneficium), a term applied both by the canon law and the law of England to a provision for an ecclesiastical person. In its most comprehensive sense it includes the temporalities as well of archbishops, bishops, deans and chapters, abbots and priors, as of parsons, vicars, monks, and

other inferior spiritual persons. But a distinction is made between benefices attached to communities under the monastic rule (sub regulâ), which are called regular benefices, and those the possessors of which live in the world (in sæculo), which are thence called secular benefices. The writers on the canon law distinguish moreover between simple or sinecure benefices, which do not require residence, and to which no spiritual duty is attached but that of reading prayers and singing (as chaplainries, canonries, and chantries), and sacerdotal benefices, which are attended with cure of souls.

Lord Coke says, "Beneficium is a large word, and is taken for any ecclesiastical promotion whatsoever." (2 Inst. 29.) But in modern English law treatises the term is generally confined to the temporalities of parsons, vicars, and perpetual curates, which in popular language are called livings. The legal possessor of a benefice attended with cure of souls is called the incumbent. The history of the origin of benefices is involved in great obscurity. The property of the Christian church appears, for some centuries after the apostolic ages, to have been strictly enjoyed in common. It was the duty of the officers called deacons (whose first appointment is mentioned in Acts, cap. vi.) to receive the rents of the real estates, or patrimonies, as they were called, of every church. Of these, as well as of the voluntary gifts in the shape of alms and oblations, a sufficient portion was set apart, under the superintendence of the bishop, for the maintenance of the bishop and clergy of the diocese; another portion was appropriated to the expenses of public worship (in which were included the charge for the repairs of the church), and the remainder was bestowed upon the poor. This division was expressly inculcated by a canon of Gelasius, pope, or rather bishop, of Rome, A.D. 470. (See Father Paul's Treatise on Ecclesiastical Benefices, cap. 7.) After the payment of tithes had become universal in the west of Europe, as a means of support to the clergy, it was enacted by one of the capitularies of Charlemagne, that they should be distributed according to this division. When the bishoprics be

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BENEFICE.

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gan to be endowed with lands and other firm possessions, the bishops, to encourage the foundation of churches, and to establish a provision for the resident clergy, gave up their portion of the tithes, and were afterwards by the canons forbidden to demand it, if they could live without it. Although the revenues of the church were thus divided, the fund from which they were derived remained for a long time entirely under the same administration as before. But by degrees every minister, instead of carrying the offerings made in his own church to the bishop, for the purpose of division, began to retain The lands also them for his own use. were apportioned in severalty among the But resident clergy of each diocese. these changes were not made in all places or all at one time, or by any general order, but by insensible degrees, as all other customs are introduced. (See Father Paul's Treatise on Benefices,' cap. 9 and 10.) "Some writers have attributed the origin of parochial divisions to a period as early as the fourth century; and it is not improbable that this change took place in some parts of the Eastern Empire, either in that or the succeeding age. Some of the Constitutions of Justinian seem to imply that in his time (the beginuing of the sixth century) the system of ecclesiastical property, as it existed in the East, was very similar to that which has prevailed in Catholic countries in modern times." The churches, monasteries, and other pious foundations possessed landed and other property (slaves among the rest), which, by the Constitutions of Justinian, they were restrained from alienating, as they had been in the habit of doing to the detriment of their successors. (Authentica, Const. vii. "On not alienating ecclesiastical things, &c.")

The general obscurity that hangs over the history of the Middle Ages prevents us from ascertaining, with precision, at what period the changes we have alluded to were introduced into the west of Europe. This, however, seems clear, that after the feudal system had acquired a firm footing in the west of Europe, during the ninth and tenth centuries, its principles were soon applied to ecclesiastical as well as

lay property. Hence, as the estates dis-
tributed in fief by the kings of France
and Germany among their favoured
nobles were originally termed beneficia
[BENEFICIUM], this name was conferred,
by a kind of doubtful analogy, upon the
temporal possessions of the church. Thus,
the bishoprics were supposed to be held
by the bounty of the kings (who had by
degrees usurped the right originally vested
in the clergy and people of filling them up
when vacant), while the temporalities of
the inferior ecclesiastical offices were held
of the bishops, in whose patronage and dis-
posal they for the most part then were.
The manner of investiture of benefices in
those early times was probably the same
as that of lay property, by the delivery
of actual possession, or of some symbols
of possession, as the ring and crozier,
which were the symbols of investiture
appropriated to bishoprics.

Benefices being thus endowed, and re-
cognised as a species of private property,
their number gradually multiplied during
the ages succeeding that of Charlemagne.
In England especially several causes con-
tributed to the rise of parochial churches.
"Sometimes" (says Dr. Burn, Eccles.
Law, title "Appropriation") "the itinerant
preachers found encouragement to settle
amongst a liberal people, and by their
assistance to raise up a church and a little
adjoining manse. Sometimes the kings,
in their country vills and seats of plea-
sure or retirement, ordered a place of
worship for their court and retinue, which
was the original of royal free chapels.
Very often the bishops, commiserating
the ignorance of the country people, took
care for building churches as the only
way of planting or keeping up Christi-
anity among them. But the more ordi-
nary method of augmenting the number
of churches depended on the piety of the
greater lords, who, having large fees
and territories in the country, founded
churches for the service of their families
and tenants within their dominion. It
was this that gave a primary title to the
patronage of laymen; it was this made
the bounds of a parish commensurate to
those of a manor; and it was this distinct
property of lords and tenants that by de-
grees allotted new parochial bounds, by

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