(French bourse), a public edifice in certain continental cities, for the meeting of merchants to negotiate bills, and to confer on matters of trade and money. In England and in America, such building is called an exchange. The first place of this kind to which the name burse was given was at Bruges. From this city the name was afterwards transferred to the like places in others, as in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bergen in Norway, and London. This last, anciently known by the name of the common burse of merchants, had the denomination of the royal exchange given it by Queen Elizabeth. In the time of the Romans there were public places for the meeting of merchants in most of the trading cities in the empire. That built at Rome n.c. 495, in the consulate of Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius, was denominated the college of merchants. Some remains of it are still to be seen, and are known by the modern Romans under the name loggia. The Hans towns, after the example of the Romans, gave to their burse the name of colleges.