bead and beadsman and bedesman

When I was a young man, I used to think that the faster you did something, the more you got accomplished. Getting jobs done quickly, with attention to getting them right, was my goal. Now, however, I try to go as slowly as I can. When I try to "cover" much ground in reading or thinking, I find my mind becoming cloyed or overstuffed, like I used to feel after Thanksgiving dinners. Now what I do when I find myself trying to absorb too much information is I pause and try to recapture rhythms of slowness. In fact, the product of this kind of thinking is an essay like this.

I have been reading Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona in preparation for seeing the play next week in Ashland, OR. It is one of S's earlier plays, and so does not have the literary or plot sophistication as comedies/romances such as Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure or As You Like It. Thus, you can really blow through this play quickly if you want. And, that is what I thought I would do. But my mind and heart objected. At first I wanted to overrule my mind because of all the things I wanted to read. But I have learned that it is best to listen to myself, and slow down, and try to pursue a thread or two along the way.

Starting With Beadsman

So, I was reading the interchange in 1.1 between Proteus, who claims that he is madly in love with Julia, and Valentine, a man who wants to explore the world but hasn't yet found love. Valentine is off to Milan, and Proteus will stay behind at Verona, pining after Julia. As they are ready to part, Proteus says the following:

"Wish me partaker in thy happiness
When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger
If ever danger do environ thee,
Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine" (1.1.14-18).

The note in most editions of the play says that a "beadsman" is "one who contracts to pray on behalf of another." So, the sentence is clear. Proteus will pray on behalf of Valentine.

But I decided that I wanted to check out that term a little more fully, and here is what I found.

Starting with Bead

I knew that a beadsman had something to do with beads, but I didn't know that a bead, that little round thing through which a string passes, was not the first or oldest meaning of that term. In fact, the word "bead" is similar to and perhaps derived from the world of medieval Northern European languages where bede (modern forms include the German bitte) is a request or supplication. In English its use goes back more than 1000 years and means a prayer or (pl.) devotions. From 1494 we have such a usage of the term: "I hope to have ben saved by your bedes & prayers." Then, as the OED says, "the name was transferred from prayer to the small globular bodies used for 'telling beads,' i.e., counting prayers said." So, the object which we now know as a bead was derived from the prayer itself. This is an interesting development because usually we think of languages moving from the concrete to the abstract (at least that is the popular presentation of linguistic development). But, in fact, the meaning of bead evolved from the more abstract (a prayer is not something you can see or touch) to the concrete. Thus, various phrases developed, such as "to bid a bead" (to offer a prayer), "beads bidding" (the saying of prayers) and "to say one's beads" (to pray). From 1598: "The Beades that we will bid, shall be our sweet Kisses."

The Beadsman/Bedesman

Now it is crystal clear that a beadsman (originally bedesman) is one who "prays for the spiritual welfare of another." Shakespeare's usage of the term had been established for a few centuries before his use of it in Two Gentlemen. In the centuries after Shakespeare, however, the beadsman became associated with a person in an almshouse who prayed for someone who gave him money. From 1593 (actually during Shakespeare's time) we have: "He shall have forty pound of yearly fee, And be my beadsman." If intercession with the divine was thought to bring prosperity and safety, why not pay for it? It is a sort of insurance policy one takes out.

I managed to find a reference to them in Walter Scott's The Antiquary which gives insight not only into these people but the whole institution of mendicancy in Scotland in the 18th century and before. Perhaps surprisingly, he says that "many of the old Scottish mendicants were by no means to be confounded with the utterly degraded class of beings who now practice that wandering trade." In fact, he relies on a 17th century work to say that Scottish beggars were originally thought to be descended from Jockies, who used to recite the "Sloggorne" (war-cries) of most of the true ancient surnames of Scotland. They were a dying breed in the 17th century, and their knowledge and "bardlike" character was much appreciated.

In the context of discussing the Jockies, he mentions the Beadsmen. "If, in addition to his personal qualifications, the mendicant chanced to be a King's Bedesman, or Blue-Gown, he belonged, in virtue thereof, to the aristocracy of his order, and was esteemed a parson of great importance." Scott goes on to say (sorry for the long quotation, but it is very helpful):

"These Bedesmen are an order of paupers to whom the Kings of Scotland were in the custom of distributing a certain alms, in conformity with the ordinances of the Catholic Church, and who were expected in return to pray for the royal welfare and that of the state. This order is still kept up. Their number is equal to the number of years which his Majesty has lived; and one Blue-Gown additional is put on the roll for every returning royal birth-day. On the same auspicious era, each Bedesman receives a new cloak, or gown of coarse cloth, the colour light blue, with a pewter badge, which confers on them the general privilege of asking alms through all Scotland, ---all laws against sorning, masterful beggary, and every other species of mendicity, being suspended in favour of this privileged class. With his cloak, each receives a leathern purse, containing as many shillings Scots (videlicet, pennies sterling) as the sovereign is years old; the zeal of their intercession for the king's long life receiving, it is to be supposed, a great stimulus from their own present and increasing interest in the object of their prayers. On the same occasion one of the Royal Chaplains preaches a sermon to the Bedesmen, who (as one of the reverend gentlemen expressed himself) are the most impatient and inattentive audience in the world. Something of this may arise from a feeling on the part of the Bedesmen, that they are paid for their own devotions, not for listening to those of others. Or, more probably, it arises from impatience, natural, though indecorous in men bearing so venerable a character, to arrive at the conclusion of the ceremonial of the royal birth-day, which, so far as they are concerned, ends in a lusty breakfast of bread and ale; the whole moral and religious exhibition terminating in the advice of Johnson's ``Hermit hoar'' to his proselyte..."

Scott then goes on to scour some historical records of "the charity bestowed on these aged Bedesmen," but I will spare you these facts.

Conclusion

Suffice it to say now that I have a full enough understanding of the term so that I can not only understand its usage in Two Gentlemen but also have a deeper understanding of their social role in England and Scotland. This is the kind of knowledge I like...

2005