1. obsolete form of beadle.

1. same as beadle.

1. in the medieval universities, a servant of a “nation” or faculty (each of which companies elected two, an upper and a lower, termed the esquire bedel and the yeoman bedel, terms showing the classes from which they were chosen), whose duties were to apportion the “schools” or lecture-rooms and the chapters of the colleges and halls, to cry the days and hours of the lectures, to publish and carry out the decrees of the company, to march before the rector, dean, or proctor with a silver mace on occasions of ceremony, etc. see beadle.