BURSAR, or BURSARI (Bursarius), is used, in the middle-age writers, for a treasurer or cash-keeper. In this sense we meet with bursars of colleges. Conventual bursars were officers in monasteries, who were bound to deliver an account yearly on the day after Michaelmas. The word is formed from the Latin bursa, whence the English word purse; and hence also the officer, who in a college is called bursar, in a ship is called purser.