an inhabitant of a borough or walled town, or one who possesses a tenement therein. Anciently, burgesses were held in great contempt, being reputed servile, base, and unfit for war; so that the gentry were not allowed to intermarry in their families, or fight with them, but in lieu thereof to appoint champions.

BURGESS is now ordinarily used for the representative of a borough in parliament. Burgesses are supposed to represent the mercantile part, or trading interest, of the nation; and they were formerly allowed, by a rate established in the reign of Edward III., two shillings a day as wages. The right of election of burgesses depends on several local charters and customs; and by 3 Geo. III. c. 15, no freeman, except such as claim by birth, servitude, or marriage, is entitled to vote, unless he has been admitted to his freedom twelve months before. Burgess, in Scotland, is a member of the corporation of a burgh, admitted either by the charter of erection, or by birth, as being the son of a burgess, or by serving an apprenticeship to a burgess, or by marrying the daughter of a burgess, or by election by the magistrates of the burgh. The heir of a burgess has a right to heirship movables.

BURGRAVE properly denotes the hereditary governor of a castle or fortified town, chiefly in Germany. The word is compounded of berg, town, and graf or grace, count. The burgervogts were originally the same with what is otherwise called castellans or comites castellani; but their dignity was considerably advanced under Rudolph of Hapsburg. Before his time they were ranked only as counts, and below the princes, but under him they began to be esteemed as on a footing with princes. In some parts the dignity has much degenerated.