Skip to content


Bedel - Law Dictionary Search Results

Home Dictionary Name: bedel

Beadle, or Bedel

Beadle, or Bedel [fr. beodan, bydel, A. S., to bid], a church-servant who is chosen by the vestry, and whose business is to attend the vestry, to give notice of its meetings, to execute its orders, to attend upon inquests, and to assist the constables. A crier or messenger of a Court, who cites men to appear and answer; an inferior officer of a parish or liberty. Many other kinds of subordinate officers are socalled....


Bedel

Same as Beadle...


Bedelary

Bedelary, the jurisdiction of a bedel....


Court-leet

Court-leet. [Coke says leet is a Saxon word, and comes from the verb gelathian, or gelethian (g being added euphoni' gratia), i.e., convenire, to assemble together, unde conventus, 4 Inst. 261. For other opinions as to the derivation of the word, see Lex Man. 131; Ritson on Courts-leet; and Scriv. On Copyholds.] This court is expressly kept up by s. 40 of the Sheriffs Act, 1887, though for all but formal purposes it has long since fallen into desuetude, and there is still an annual Court-leet of the Manor and Liberty of Savoy which meets at St. Clement Danes Vestry Hall, the High Steward of the Manor presiding, a jury being empannelled one month aftr Easter and serving for a year from that date, the court being held 'for the purpose of preventing small offences in the nature of a common nuisance,' and still having 'power to impose fines for certain offenes, such the stopping up of ways': Solicitor's Journal,Vol. 49, p. 493.The Court-leet is a court of record appointed to be held once a...


Pandect', or Digesta

Pandect', or Digesta. In the last month of the year AD 530, Justinian, by a constitution addressed to Tribonian, empowered him to name a commission for the purpose of forming a code out of the writings of those jurists who had enjoyed the Jus respondendi, or, as it is expressed by the emperor, 'antiquorum prudentium quibus auctoritatem conscribendarum interpretandarumque legum sacratissimi principes pr'buerunt.' The compilation, however, comprises extracts from some writers of the republican period, Const. Deo Auctore. Ten years were allowed for the completion of the work. The instructions of the emperor were, to select what was useful, to omit what was antiquated or superfluous, to avoid unnecessary repetitions, to get rid of contradictions, and to make such other changes as should produce out of the mass of ancient juristical writings a useful and complete body of law (jus Antiquum);--the work was to be named Digesta, a Latin term indicating an arrangement of materials; or Pandect', ...


  • << Prev.
  • Next >>

Sign-up to get more results

Unlock complete result pages and premium legal research features.

Start Free Trial

Save Judgments// Add Notes // Store Search Result sets // Organize Client Files //