Wakeman

Obs. exc. arch. Also 5 wak-, wayk-, walkman. [f. WAKE sb.¹ + MAN. Cf. ON. vǫkumað-r (-mann).]

  1.  A watchman.

c. 1200.  Ormin, 3812. All all swa summ þa wakemenn … offdrede wærenn … oft þatt enngless sihhþe.

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 14. Þe fif wittes, þet witeð þe heorte alse wakemen hwarse heo beoð treowe.

1398.  Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., II. v. (1495), 32. Angels ben called walkmen and wardeyns for they warne men of perylles that maye falle.

c. 1425.  Seven Sag. (P.), 1443. As thay spoken lowde togyder, The wakmen herde and come thydyr.

1461.  in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. V. 301. The gaylere and the wakman of the saide citie … shal have the mesuring of salte and corne.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 406/2. A Waykman, noctivagus, pervigill, pernox, vigil (A.).

1552.  Inv. Ch. Goods York, etc. (Surtees), 59. Churchewardens … wakmene and inhabitantes of the same parishe [Beverley, St. Nicholas].

1905.  W. Watson, Ballad Semmerwater, Poems I. 193. King’s tower and queen’s bower, And the wakeman on the wall.

  2.  In the borough of Ripon: a. In the 15–16th c. the designation of a class of municipal officers, whose duties included attendance on the shrine of St. Wilfrid. (Cf. quot. 1552 in 1, relating to one of the parishes of Beverley.) b. The title of the chief magistrate of the borough until 1604, when it was exchanged for the title of mayor.

  Lists of the ‘wakemen’ of the borough from 1400 to 1604 are extant, giving as a rule one name for each year, and ending with Hugh Ripplaye (see quot. c. 1605). It is commonly assumed that the ‘wakeman’ who was chief magistrate was the head of the body of ‘wakemen’ referred to in quots. 1478 and 1511, but there is no evidence of this.

1478.  Mem. Ripon (Surtees), III. 259. Et in denariis sol[utis]. ministris villæ Ripon vocatis Wakemen, deservientibus feretro in festo Ascensionis Domini et per iij dies præcedentes, cap. per diem 4d., 16d. Ibid. (1511), 177. De 56s. 1d. similiter per ipsum receptis de diversis personis electis in officium lez Wakeman.

c. 1605.  Acct. Bk. W. Wray, in Antiquary, XXXII. 213. 1604. Heughe Ripplaye. The laste wakeman and first maior [of Ripon].

1733.  T. Gent, Hist. Rippon, 139. A List of the Wakemen of Rippon, from the Year 1400 (the rest of the Corporation were then called Elders) ’till King James I. alter’d their Government, Anno Dom. 1604.

1875.  Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xxi. 583. The jurisdiction was exercised [at Ripon] by the bailiffs…, and the elective wakeman.