HEAD-BORROW, or HEAD-BOROUGH, signifies the person who is the chief of the frank pledge, and had anciently the principal direction of those within his own pledge. He was also called burrow-head, burshoulder, nowbors-holder, third-borrow, tything-man, chief-pledge, and borrow-elder, according to the diversity of speech in different places. This officer is now usually called a high constable. The head-borrow was the chief of ten pledges; the other nine were called hand-borrows, or plegi manuales, &c.
HEAD-BORROW
article · 503 chars · lineage ↗ · page image at NLS ↗