Burgess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Burgess is an English word that originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh. It later came to mean an elected or un-elected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons.
The word is linguistically close to the French "Bourgeois", which evolved from the Old French word burgeis, meaning "an inhabitant of a town" (cf. Middle English burgeis, Middle Dutch burgher and German Bürger). The Old French word burgeis is derived from bourg, meaning a market town or medieval village, itself derived from Late Latin burgus, meaning "fortress"[1] or "wall," the reference being to the merchant class which tended to set-up their store fronts along the outside of the medieval city wall, where traffic through the gates was an advantage and safety in event of an attack was easily accessible.
[edit] See also
- Virginia House of Burgesses, the lower house of the first elected legislative assembly in the New World
