Somoner

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An archaic official whose job was to call people to appear before a court, especially an ecclesiastical court in medieval England
2. A former court officer who served formal summonses, delivering orders for individuals to present themselves before a tribunal
3. Historically, a church or legal official charged with calling offenders to answer charges before a judicial body

Etymology: Somoner is a Middle English word for a summoner, the official who served summonses to appear before the church courts, which in medieval England tried moral offences such as adultery, slander and usury. Its origin lies in the Anglo-Norman and Old French "somoner", from Latin "summonere", to remind or call up secretly, a sense that survives in the older idea of summoning someone quietly into one's presence. Chaucer made the figure notorious in the "Canterbury Tales". His Summoner, with a face like a fiery cherub and a taste for bribes, extorts money from sinners in exchange for letting them off, and the portrait is one of the sharpest satires of clerical corruption in English literature. The Summoner's reputation was so poor that the word became a byword for a corrupt, grasping official. Later spellings and forms, including "sumner", reflect the same word worn down by pronunciation, and "sumner" survives as a surname. The word itself has largely dropped out of ordinary use, surviving mainly in historical writing and in discussions of Chaucer.

Synonyms: summoner, somner, apparitor