Mr. Jebb, in his Query respecting the exoticæ voces "Marigmerii" and "Melinglerii," seems to be right in his conjecture that they are both of them corruptions of some word answering to the French Marguillier, a churchwarden. The word in question is probably Meragularius. It appears to be a term but rarely used, and to occur but once in Martene, De Antiq. Eccl. Ritibus, tom. i. p. 233., Venice, 1783, in the conclusion of his extract "de ordinario MS. ecclesiæ Cabilonensis;" where the officer in question performs the duty of the Vestararius:
"Diaconus et Subdiaconus inter se plicant vestimenta sua, Meragularius præstat auxilium sacerdoti."
Though elsewhere Martene explains the term by "Ædituus, custos ædis."
With regard to the latter word, the meaning of which Mr. Jebb inquires, Berefellarii, I may suggest that he will find, on reading somewhat further in the archbishop's Statuta for Beverley, a further account of these same Berefellarii; which almost precludes the likelihood of a blunder in the original document, or at least of Beneficiarii being the correct word. For the archbishop, having occasion to mention them again, gives the origin of their institution:
"Quos quidem Berefellarios recolendæ memoriæ Dom. Johannes de Thoresby dudum Eborum Archiepiscopus ad honorem dictæ Ecclesiæ Beverlaci, et majorem decentiam ministrantium in eadem provincia ordinabat."
He then proceeds:
"Sed quia eorum turpe nomen Berefellariorum, patens risui remanebat, dictos Septem de cætero non Berefellarios sed Personas volumus nuncupari."
And accordingly we find them called hereafter in this document by the very indefinite appellation, Septem Personæ.
The word Berefellarii seems obviously to be of Anglo-Saxon origin; as well from the extract I have given above, as from the absence of the term in works on the continental rituals, as Martene for instance. And I would suggest, in default of a better derivation, that the word may have been Latinised from the Anglo-Saxon bere fellan or sellan. The office would then be that of almoner, and the Berefellarii would be the "persons" who doled out victuals to the poor; literally, barley-givers. Such an original would make the term liable to the objection to which the archbishop alluded; and the office does not altogether disagree with what was stated as the object of its institution, viz.:
"Ad honorem ecclesiæ Beverlaci, et majorem decentiam ministrantium in eadem."