or Burgage-tenure, is where the king or other person is lord of a borough in which the tenements are held by a rent certain. A borough is distinguished from other towns by the right of sending members to parliament; and where the right of election is by burgage-tenure, that alone is a proof of the antiquity of the borough. Tenure in burgage, therefore, or burgage-tenure, is where houses, or lands which were formerly the site of houses, in an ancient borough, are held of some lord in common soccage, by a certain established rent. These tenures seem to have withstood the shock of the Norman encroachments, principally on account of their insignificances, as a hundred of them put together would scarcely have amounted to a knight's fee. Besides, the owners of them, being chiefly artificers, and persons engaged in trade, could not with propriety be put on a military establishment like that founded on the tenure in chivalry; and hence the free soccage in which these tenements are held seems to be a remnant of Saxon liberty, which may account for the variety of customs affecting many of the tenements held in ancient burgage.