in writers of the middle age, a kind of hunters, or sportsmen, who pursued wild beasts in forests and chases. The word seems derived from the barbarous Latin bersare, "to shoot with a bow;" on which principle it should properly denote archers only, or bowmen. Or it might be derived from berfa, "the fence or pales of a park;" in which view, it should primarily import those who hunt or poach in parks or forests.

Hincmar speaks of a kind of inferior officers in the court of Charlemagne, under the denomination of berjarii, veltrarii, and beverarii. Spelman takes the first to denote those who hunted the wolf; the second, those who had the superintendency of the hounds for that use; and the third, those who hunted the beaver.