_Berefellarii_ (Vol. viii., p. 420.).--M. PHILARETE CHASLES has
misrepresented JOHN JEBB'S Query and conjecture about _berefellarii_ (Vol.
vii., p. 207.). He never spoke of these officers as "_half ecclesiastics_
(!), dirty, shabby, ill-washed attendants." They were priests of an
inferior grade, answering to the minor canons of cathedrals, and superior
to the vicars choral, who were also called _personae_ and _rectores chori_.
He has far too great a respect for collegiate foundations to use such
opprobrious terms when speaking of any class of ministers of divine
service. The only conjecture J. JEBB made was, that the word might possibly
have been a corruption (arising from incorrect writing) of _beneficiarii_,
which is continually used abroad for the inferior clergy of collegiate
churches, though not common in {551} England. It is just _possible_, though
not very probable, that this somewhat foreign word was misread, and gave
rise to a blundering corruption conveying ludicrous ideas, the "turpe
nomen" alluded to by the Archbishop of York tempore Ric. II. The
conjectural derivation of the word from Anglo-Saxon words was not my own,
but that of a subsequent correspondent. It is just one of those conjectures
which, like that of "Mazarinaeus," may be quite as likely to be false as
true. I could suggest twenty that would be quite as likely; such as
_bier-followers_ (attenders on funerals, as did the clerks and inferior
clergy in cathedrals), or _bury fellows_ (query, burying fellows), or _beer
fellows_ (like the _beerers_ in Dean Aldrich's famous catch), or _belly
fillers_, &c., or lastly, some corruption of _Beverly_ itself.
_Barefellows_ is as likely as any. Still I cannot think that these
functionaries were low or contemptible. Their position corresponded to a
very honourable status in cathedral churches.