Also 6 -cleark, 7 -clark, 9 -clerc. [a. F. beau fine + clerc:—L. clēricus clergyman, hence ‘scholar,’ as opposed to the uneducated laity: see CLERK.] A learned man, a scholar. (Given as a surname to Henry I.)
c. 1367. Eulog. Hist. (1863), III. V. ci. 40. Henricus cognomento Beauclerk.
1586. W. Webbe, Eng. Poetrie (Arb.), 31. Henry the first King of that name in England … was named by his surname Beaucleark.
1641. J. Jackson, True Evang. T., iii. 206. Erasmus and Ferus, two Beauclerks.
1856. Knight, Pop. Hist. Eng., I. xvi. 218. The brutal Rufus, or the crafty Beau Clerc.
