"Malingrerium, olim dictum qui hodie Sacrista est."
Ducange also thus explains the cognate word Marrellarius:
"Ædituus, custos ædis sacræ, vulgo Marguillier," &c.
Mr. Jebb is therefore undoubtedly right in identifying the signification of these terms with that of the French "Marguillier," the Latin phrase for which is Matricularius, so called because those officers were selected from the paupers who were admitted into the Matricula, or hospice adjoining the church or convent:
"Ex Matriculariis pauperibus quidam seligebantur ad viliora Ecclesiarum adjacentium munia, v.g. qui campanas pulsarent, ecclesiarum custodiæ invigilarent [church-wardens in the true sense of the word], eas scoparent ac mundarent. Atque inde Matriculariorum (nostris Marguillier) in ecclesiis parochialibus origo."
Of another singular word, Berefellarii, and of the adoption of Personæ instead of it, the history is very amusing, though, perhaps, scarcely fit for the pages of "N. & Q." It would seem that these inferior servitors of the church were not very cleanly in their person or habits. The English populace, by a not very delicate pun on their name, were wont to call them bewrayed fellows, the meaning of which it is not necessary farther to explain. In a letter of Thomas, Archbishop of York (preserved in Dugdale's Monasticon, tom. III. p. ii. p. 5.), the good prelate says:
"Scilicet Præcentoris, Cancellarii, et Sacristæ, ac Septem Personarum qui olim Berefellarii fuerunt nuncupati.... Sed quia eorum turpe nomen Berefellariorum, patens risui remanebat, dictos Septem de cætero non Berefellarios sed Personas volumus nuncupari."
The glossarist adds, with some naïveté:
"Cur autem ita obscæna hujusmodi iis indita appellatio, dicant Angli ipsi!"
P. C. S. S.