bedesmen

[20] This word is probably connected with the Anglo-Saxon 'béd,' a prayer (whence 'bedesmen'), and means a 'house of prayer.'

Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

For instance, a wealthy patron in the Middle Ages may have supported poor bedesmen, who had promised to pray for the patron, and may have provided a bedehouse for bedesmen or bedeswomen to live in.

The Name of the Rosary elena maria vidal 2009

For instance, a wealthy patron in the Middle Ages may have supported poor bedesmen, who had promised to pray for the patron, and may have provided a bedehouse for bedesmen or bedeswomen to live in.

Archive 2009-07-01 elena maria vidal 2009

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.

The Warden 2004

John Bold sometimes thinks of this, when he is talking loudly of the rights of the bedesmen, whom he has taken under his protection; but he quiets the suggestion within his breast with the high-sounding name of justice: ‘Fiat justitia ruat coelum.’

The Warden 2004

All the Barchester world, including the five old bedesmen, treated Mr. Quiverful with the more respect because Mr. Harding had thus walked in, arm in arm with him, on his first entrance to his duties.

Barchester Towers 2004

Hospital was again to be filled up and that in all probability he would once more return to his old home and his twelve bedesmen.

Barchester Towers 2004

And the old bedesmen, they also heard of this article, and had a glimmering, indistinct idea of the marvellous advocate which had now taken up their cause.

The Warden 2004

Would he have to abdicate his precentorship, as he had his wardenship, and to give up chanting, as he had given up his twelve old bedesmen?

Barchester Towers 2004

Not a sound came from the eleven bedesmen, as they sat listening to what, according to the archdeacon, was their intended estate.

The Warden 2004