BIIR'GESS, or BURGll'ER, from the same origin as borough, means, when taken in a. general sense, much the same thing as the word citizen, but has a variety of special meanings, according to local institutions. In French literature, the word bourgeois is generally used to personify the excess of plebeian vulgarity; while, on the other hand, in England, the aristocratic member of parliament for a city is technically called a bur gess. In almost all parts of Europe, when used in a technical sense, the word means a person who holds some peculiar privilege in a town or municipal corporation. The burgesses of the European towns, indeed, were, and still nominally are, an interesting relic of ancient Roman institutions, existing in contest and rivalry with the institutions of feudality. The B., with a different name, is virtually the civis or citizen of the Roman municipality. It was a rank always of sonic moment, but especially valuable when the citizenship was of Rome, the metropolis. St. Paul, when lie was to be scourged, raised the alarm of the chief captain by stating that lie was a Roman. Such an event might often have happened in the middle ages, when a B., brought before the court. of a feudal lord claimed the privilege of pleading in his own burgal court, or the king's tribunal. The European monarchs found it their interest to support the bur gesses, as a check on the influence of the feudal aristocracy; and thus was nourished the great system of city communities, which have exercised so important an influence on the fate of the world. See MUNICIPALITY.
In the law of England, a B. is a member of the corporation of a corporate town, or he may be described as a freeman duly admitted as a member of the corporate body. This privilege was, and, to some extent, still is, acquired by birth or servitude—that is, by being born of a freeman, or by apprenticeship for seven years within the borough to a freeman. It might also be obtained. by gift or purchase; and the municipal corpora tion act, the 5 and 0 Will. c. 76—with the exception of abolishing the last-mentioned mode of admission by gift or purchase—expressly reserves the rights of such freemen and their families; and it also provides for the making up and preservation of a list of burgesses so admitted, to be called the freeman's roll (q.v.). In that act, a burgess is
defined to be a male person, who, on the last day of Aug. in any year, shall have occu pied any house, warehouse, counting-house, or shop ~within the borough, during that year and the whole of the two preceding years; and during such occupation shall also have been an inhabitant householder within the borough, or within seven miles thereof. As the law now stands, every person of full age (and this includes females) who on the last day of July shall have occupied any house, warehouse, counting-house, shop, or other building within the borough during the whole of the preceding twelve months, and also shall have resided within seven miles of the borough, shall, if duly enrolled, be a burgess and member of the body corporate of the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of such borough, provided he shall have paid his borough rates up to the preceding Jan., and shall not have been in receipt of parochial relief. The premises occupied need not be the same throughout the year if they are within the borough, 35 and 36 Viet. c. 55. See Town COUNCIL. The vote is by ballot.
In the Scotch law, the 41 definition of B. is still maintained. This is very similar to the old English one above mentioned, with the addition of admission to the privilege Ly election of the magistrates of the borough—the burgesses taking, on the occasion of their admission, a quaint form of oath, in which they confess the religion of the country, loyalty to the queen, to the provost and bailies of the burgh and their officers, and declar ing inter alw, that they will "make concord where discord is, to the utmost of their power." By the Scotch municipal reform act, 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 76, s. 14, it was enacted that councilors must be entered burgesses of the burgh before their induction, but now, any councilor is at once made a B. by minute of council. One of the pecu liar privileges of a B. in Scotland, that of his heir having a right to heirship movables, was abolished by the statute 31 and 32 Vict. c. 101. s. 160, titles to land (Scotland) act. An act assimilating the law of Scotland to that of England respecting the creation of burgesses was passed in 1876.