A burgess was the holder of a certain status in an English or Scottish borough in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, designating someone of the burgher class. It originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh , but later came to be used mostly for office-holders in a town or one of its representatives in the House of Commons .
7-523: Boheman is a Swedish surname. Outside of Sweden, the surname is also prevalent in the United States. The surname originates from the name of a burguess from Jönköping . Notable people with this surname include: Burgess (title) In England, burgess meant an elected or unelected official of a borough, or the representative of one in the House of Commons of England . This use of
14-545: A burgess became a title that gave social standing to the office and usually carried with it a role which involved charitable activities of their guild or livery company, as it does today. The term was also used in some of the Thirteen Colonies . In the Colony of Virginia , a "burgess" was a member of the legislative body, which was termed the " House of Burgesses ". In Connecticut , New Jersey , and Pennsylvania ,
21-402: Is derived from bourg , meaning a market town or medieval village, itself derived from Late Latin burgus , meaning " fortress " or "wall". In effect, the reference was to the north-west European medieval and renaissance merchant class which tended to set up their storefronts along the outside of the city wall, where traffic through the gates was an advantage and safety in event of an attack
28-592: The Burgess, or Chief Burgess, was the executive of many colonial-era municipalities until the turn of the 20th century, and persists in some places as the highest ranking magistrate of a municipality. The word was derived in Middle English and Middle Scots from the Old French word burgeis , simply meaning "an inhabitant of a town" (cf. burgeis or burges respectively). The Old French word burgeis
35-512: The word burgess has since disappeared. Burgesses as freemen had the sole right to vote in municipal or parliamentary elections. However, in Britain and Ireland these special privileges were removed by the Reform Act 1832 . Burgesses were originally freeman inhabitants of a city in which they owned land and who contributed to the running of the town and its taxation. The title of burgess
42-517: Was easily accessible. The right to seek shelter within a burg was known as the right of burgess . The term was close in meaning to the Germanic term burgher , a formally defined class in medieval German cities ( Middle Dutch burgher , Dutch burger and German Bürger ). It is also linguistically close to the French term bourgeois , which evolved from burgeis . The original version of
49-475: Was later restricted to merchants and craftsmen, so that only burgesses could enjoy the privileges of trading or practising a craft in the city through belonging to a guild (by holding a guild ticket) or were able to own companies trading in their guild's craft. One example are the Burgesses of Edinburgh . The burgesses' ancient exclusive trading rights through their Guilds were abolished in 1846. Thereafter
#143856