Thomas Vaver ¹

  Events

• Occupation: Ostarius (doorkeeper or usher) to Henry VI (king 1422-61 & 70-71). The clerics called ostiarii had the keys of the church committed to them and were responsible for the guardianship of the sacred edifice, the holy vessels, books, and vestments. They opened the church and summoned the faithful to the Divine Mysteries. Others of them were specially deputed to guard the bodies and shrines of the martyrs. The function of ostiarius also included opening the book for the preacher and acting as an inferior minister attends to burials, bell-ringings and similar offices about a church.
This minor order became known as the sexton (Old English Sexestein, sextein, through the French sacristain from Lat. Sacrista) in England.

Thomas married after 1418.¹