Brewer's: Bidding-Prayer

The prayer for the souls of benefactors said before the sermon; a relic of this remains in the prayer used in cathedrals, university churches, etc. Bidding is from bead or bede. (Anglo-Saxon, biddan, to pray for the souls of benefactors.) (See Beadsman.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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