[Cf. ON. sverðberari.] A person who bears a sword. a. spec. A municipal official who carries a sword of state before a magistrate on ceremonial occasions.
1431. Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905), 15. The Mayres Swerd berer for the tyme beyng.
a. 1471. Rolls of Parlt., V. 396/1. Kerver and Swordberer to the said moste heynous Traytour.
1518. Star Chamber Cases (Selden Soc.), II. 143. Officers of the same Towne, as Recorder, Towne Clerke, Swordberer, attorney and other.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XVI. § 118. The City of London sent a Letter to him by their Sword-Bearer.
1708. Lond. Gaz., No. 4464/5. His Lordship … carried the Sword bareheaded before Her Majesty … to the Church, where the City Sword-bearer receiv’d it from his Lordship.
a. 1734. North, Lives (1826), I. 251. There was one Row in office of swordbearer; which in that town [sc. Bristol] is pronounced sorberer. I thought it sounded like Cerberus.
1835. App. Munic. Corpor. Rep., I. 60. The Sword-bearer [of Gloucester] is elected for life by the corporation…. His only duties are to attend upon the mayor, and to carry the sword.
b. An attendant on a military man of rank, or on a chief, who carries his master’s sword when not worn.
1660. in Verney Mem. (1904), II. 151. What the Sword-bearer brought of Monke’s coming up, may bee falsly rendered by him.
c. gen. One who carries or wears a sword.
1530. Palsgr., 278/1. Swerdeberer, porteur despee.
1538. Elyot, Macherophorus, a sworde bearer.
1570. Jewel, View Bull Pius V. (1582), 4. [Saint] Paule the Swordebearer.
1802. James, Milit. Dict., Sword-bearer, one who wears a sword.
d. A ruler or magistrate having authority to punish offenders (with allusion to Rom. xiii. 4).
1660. R. Coke, Justice Vind., 32. Though he makes no difference between Swordbearers and Swordtakers, between Gods Ministers, and Theeves and Robbers; yet the Holy Ghost does, for Gods Minister is a Swordbearer.
1691. Baxter, Nat. Ch., xi. 49. Supposing such Bishops qualified…, and usurping none of the Sword-bearers power.
e. One of an order of knights in Poland, founded in 1204: see PORT-GLAIVE.
1656. [see PORT-GLAIVE].
1693. d’Emiliane’s Hist. Monast. Orders, 287. Of the Order of Teutonick Knights, Marrianes, or Sword-bearers.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Teutonic, In 1204, Duke Albert had founded the Order of Sword-bearers, Port-Glaives.
1784. H. Clark, Hist. Knighthood, II. 88. Albert then Bishop of Livonia … prescribed to these Knights the Cistercian rule and habit, viz. a long white mantle and black hood; on the breast two swords in saltire, whence they had the title of Brethren Sword-Bearers.
1841. Penny Cycl., XX. 248/1. Most of these [German] families settled there [sc. in the Baltic provinces] when the Order of the Knights Sword-bearers was the acknowledged sovereign of these countries (from 1300 to 1530).
Hence Swordbearership, the office of a swordbearer (sense a).
1535. Cranmer, Lett. to Crumwell, in Misc. Writ. (Parker Soc.), II. 307. His preferment unto the room of the sword-bearership of London.
