Beadle

Beadle is an inferior parish-officer chosen and appointed by the vestry. His business is to attend the vestry, to give notice of its meetings to the parishioners, to execute its orders, and generally to do and execute all the orders and business of the vestry and of the parish, as their messenger or servant. The same name is applied to the messenger or crier of a court, to the inferior church-officer and attendant of a clergyman in Scotland, and, as bedcll, to the bearer of the mace in public processions in a university.