To marien this mayde Were many men assembled, As of knyghts, and of clerkes, And other commune people, As sisours, and somenours, Sherreves, and baillifs. We are here reminded of ‘Hugh le Somenur,’ or ‘Henry le Sumenour,’ now spelt ‘Sumner,’ the sheriff’s messenger, he by whom the delinquent was brought up to the court. He was the modern apparitor in fact. In the ‘Coventry Mysteries’ it is said:— Sim Somnor, in haste wend thou thi way, Byd Joseph, and his wyff by name, At the coorte to apper this day, Him to purge of her defame. A ‘Godwin Bedellus’ occurs so early as Domesday record, and as ‘Roger le Bedel,’ or ‘Martin le Bedel,’ the name is by no means rare somewhat later on. He was, whether in the forest or any other court, the servitor, he who executed processes or attended to proclamations. The modern forms of the name comprise, among others, ‘Beadell,’ ‘Beadle,’ ‘Beaddall,’ and ‘Biddle.’ Such names as ‘Richard le Gayeler’ or ‘Ada le Gaoler,’ are very commonly met with in our mediæval rolls. The term itself is of Norman origin, reminding us that, however menial the duty, the Saxon could not be entrusted with such an office as this. We cannot, however, speak of the gaoler and his _confrères_ without referring to a curious sobriquet of this period, a sobriquet to which we owe in the present day our ‘Catchpoles’ and ‘Catchpooles.’[163] The catchpole was a kind of under-bailiff or petty sergeant who distrained for debt, or otherwise did the more unpleasant part of his superior’s work, and was so called from his habit of seizing his luckless victim by the hair, or _poll_, as was the familiar term then. So general was this nickname that we find it occupying an all but official place. It is Latinized in our records into ‘cachepollus,’ a word unknown to Cicero, I am afraid. In the ‘Plowman’s Vision’ we are told of the two thieves crucified with the Saviour that:— A cachepol cam forth And cracked both their legges. Another name for the catchpole was that of ‘Cacherel’ or ‘Cacher,’ both of which forms occur at this same period as surnames. An old political song says, murmuringly:— Nedes I must spend that I spared of yore Ageyn this cacherele cometh. This sobriquet also abides with us still.[164] ‘Le Cacher,’ I fear, has been obsolete for centuries.[165]