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The Collaborative International Dictionary
apparitor

Beadle \Bea"dle\, n. [OE. bedel, bidel, budel, OF. bedel, F. bedeau, fr. OHG. butil, putil, G. b["u]ttel, fr. OHG. biotan, G. bieten, to bid, confused with AS. bydel, the same word as OHG. butil. See. Bid, v.]

  1. A messenger or crier of a court; a servitor; one who cites or bids persons to appear and answer; -- called also an apparitor or summoner.

  2. An officer in a university, who precedes public processions of officers and students. [Eng.]

    Note: In this sense the archaic spellings bedel (Oxford) and bedell (Cambridge) are preserved.

  3. An inferior parish officer in England having a variety of duties, as the preservation of order in church service, the chastisement of petty offenders, etc.

Wiktionary
apparitor

n. 1 Formerly, an officer who attended magistrates and judges to execute their orders. 2 A messenger or officer who serves the process of an ecclesiastical court.

Wikipedia
Apparitor

In ancient Rome, an apparitor (also spelled apparator in English, or shortened to paritor) was a civil servant whose salary was paid from the public treasury. The apparitores assisted the magistrates. There were four occupational grades (decuriae) among them. The highest of these was the scribae, the clerks or public notaries, followed by the lictores, lictors; viatores, messengers or summoners, that is, agents on official errands; and praecones, announcers or heralds.

The term has hence referred to a beadle in a university, a pursuivant or herald; particularly, in Roman Catholic canon law, which was largely inspired by Roman law. Apparitor remained an official title for an officer in ecclesiastical courts. They were designated to serve the summons, to arrest a person accused, and in ecclesiastico-civil procedure, to take possession, physically or formally, of the property in dispute, in order to secure the execution of the judge's sentence. This was done in countries where the ecclesiastical forum, in its substantial integrity, is recognized. He thus acts as constable and sheriff. His guarantee of his delivery of the summons is evidence of the knowledge of his obligation to appear, either to stand trial, to give testimony, or to do whatever else may be legally enjoined by the judge; his statement becomes the basis of a charge of contumacy against anyone refusing to obey summons.

Usage examples of "apparitor".

A crowd gathered round, and an evil fellow, one Fulk, the apparitor, an underling of the sheriff employed to summon criminals to the court, remarked that as a thief could not legally be mutilated unless he had taken to the value of a shilling, it would be well to add a few articles to the list of stolen goods.

One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court.

He became an Apparitor when his immediate superior died in the arms of a shared lover.