What is "bearwards"

Usage examples of "bearwards".

There were peddlers and beggars, cobblers and tinkers and healers and honest workingmen, musicians and bearwards and animal keepers.

From among which company our bearwards are not excepted, and just cause: for I have read that they have, either voluntarily or for want of power to master their savage beasts, been occasion of the death and devouration of many children in sundry countries by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of them.

And for that cause there is and have been many sharp laws made for bearwards in Germany, whereof you may read in other.