What is "bedesmen"

Usage examples of "bedesmen".

Formerly, indeed--that is, till within some fifty years of the present time--they received but sixpence a day, and their breakfast and dinner was found them at a common table by the warden, such an arrangement being in stricter conformity with the absolute wording of old Hiram's will: but this was thought to be inconvenient, and to suit the tastes of neither warden nor bedesmen, and the daily one shilling and fourpence was substituted with the common consent of all parties, including the bishop and the corporation of Barchester.

The bedesmen, however, were most of them older than Mr Harding, and were quite satisfied with the security on which their extra income was based.

As John Bold will occupy much of our attention we must endeavour to explain who he is, and why he takes the part of John Hiram's bedesmen.

Not long after this success, he heard from different quarters that Hiram's bedesmen were treated as paupers, whereas the property to which they were, in effect, heirs was very large.

It gladdened the precentor's heart to think that the old bedesmen whom he loved so well admired the strains which were to him so full of almost ecstatic joy.

The quad, as it was familiarly called, was a small quadrangle, open on one side to the river, and surrounded on the others by the high wall of Mr Harding's garden, by one gable end of Mr Harding's house, and by the end of the row of buildings which formed the residences of the bedesmen.

He determined that at any rate he would take no offence, and that he would make this question no cause of quarrel either with Bold or with the bedesmen.

What I want you, Sir Abraham, to tell me, is this--am I, as warden, legally and distinctly entitled to the proceeds of the property, after the due maintenance of the twelve bedesmen?