# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Borough

See also Borough on Wikipedia; Borough, Ancient borough, Burgh, Royal burgh, Burgh of royality, and Burgh of barony at Wikipedia; Borough in the 11th Edition; and the disclaimer.
BOROUGH. Although the idea of self-government by a town is exemplified in the coloniæ and municipia of Rome, and in their duumviri, decuriones, and lesser senate, composed of the curial orders, which along with the defensor civitatis appear to have existed in vigour until the reign of Leo the Philosopher (Const., 46, 47), yet as the local power was gradually subordinated to the imperial, and as both in France and Italy it seems almost universally to have disappeared when the territorial jurisdictions, as well as the feudal fiefs, became hereditary, it is impossible to trace an historical connection between these institutions and the modern borough. In Spain and Languedoc, perhaps, the forms of ancient independence may have been continuously preserved, but the system of government by comes and scabini (or assessors), which was pursued in both France and Italy by the successors of Charlemagne, was obviously opposed to the freedom of towns. It is during the 11th and 12th centuries that we begin to read in charters of the citizens of Narbonne, the burgesses of Carcassonne, the consuls of Beziers, the magistrates of Rouergues, the capitols of Toulouse. It is during the reigns of Louis the Fat, Louis the Lion, and Philip Augustus that charters of commune become frequent. These charters, which sometimes bear to be granted on account of the poverty of the townsfolk, the enormities of the clergy, or the attacks of the local Seigneurs, were probably dictated by the pecuniary needs of the Crown; but they attest the growing power—the de facto rights of the industrial population. They distinguish between Bourgeoisies and Communes proper: the former obtained a confirmation of ancient customs, of exemption from feudal jurisdiction, of personal liberty, but they did not obtain an elective municipal government. In Italy the revival of civic autonomy was much more rapid. Although Frederic Barbarossa reserved to himself in the peace of Constance the right of nominating consuls in the Italian towns, Bishop Otho of Frisingen tells us that the imperial influence did not count for much; and in 1288, at least, we have in the Potestas (Podesta), the Concilium Generale, and Concilium Novem Dominorum of Siena, a type of the independent republican city.
The Saxon byrig or burh is properly the fortified house of the powerful man. Related forms are burgus (Latin of 4th century); burg (High German); baurgs (Gothic); borg (Gaelic); πύργος (Greek); bor, borc, and bourg (French); and broch, a pledge. The burgensis, or inhabitant of a walled town, was opposed to villanus, or inhabitant of the villa, or open town. The Gemot, or assembly of the original township, had the power of making by-laws (the Danish prefix means “town”), and of electing the Gerefa (Reeve), the Bydel, and the Tithing-man or constable, the first of whom represented the assembly in the courts of the hundred and the shire. The Gemot also saw to the collection of taxes imposed by the higher courts, the pursuit of criminals, and the search for stolen goods. In mercantile places, such as London and Bath, the chief officer was called Port-Gerefa from the gates in which the market was held.
In Ireland the earliest traces of burghal life are connected with the maritime settlements on the southern and eastern coast. The invasion of Henry II. colonized these Ostman ports with Anglo-Norman communities, who brought with them, or afterwards obtained, municipal charters of a favourable kind. The English settlement obviously depended on the advantages which the burgesses possessed over the native population outside. Quite different from these were the new close boroughs which during the plantation of Ulster James I. introduced from England. The conquest was by this time completed, and by a rigorous enforcement of the Supremacy and Uniformity Acts the existing liberties of the older boroughs were almost entirely withdrawn. By the new rules published (in terms of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation) in 1672 resident traders were permitted to become freemen, but neither this regulation nor the ordinary admissions through birth, marriage, and apprenticeship succeeded in giving to Ireland free and vigorous municipalities. The corrupt admission of non-resident freemen, in order to outvote the ancient freeholders in parliamentary elections, and the systematic exclusion of Roman Catholics, soon divorced the “commonalty” from true local interests, and made the corporations, which elected themselves or selected the constituency, dangerously unpopular.
In the north of Scotland there was an association of Free Burghs called the Hanse or Ansus; and the Lord Chamberlain, by his Iter, or circuit of visitation, maintained a common standard of right and duties in all burghs, and examined the state of the “common good,” the accounts of which in 1535 were appointed to be laid before the auditors in Exchequer. The Chamberlain latterly presided in the Curia Quatuor Burgorum (Edinburgh, Berwick, Stirling, Roxburgh), which not only made regulations in trade, but decided questions of private right (e.g., succession), according to the varying customs of burghs. This court frequently met at Haddington; in 1454 it was fixed at Edinburgh. The more modern Convention of Royal Burghs (which appeared as a judicial persona in the Court of Session so late as 1839) probably dates from the Act of James III. (1487, c. 111), which appointed the Commissioners of Burghs, both north and south, to meet yearly at Inverkeithing “to treat of the welfare of merchandize, the good rule and statutes for the common profit of burghs, and to provide for remeid upon the skaith and injuries sustained within the burghs.” Among the more important functions of this body (on whose decrees at one time summary diligence proceeded) were the prohibition of undue exactions within burghs, the revisal of the “set” or mode of municipal election, and the pro rata division among the burghs of the parliamentary subsidy required from the Third Estate. The Convention still meets, but the reform of the municipalities, and the complete representation of the mercantile interests in the United Parliament, have deprived it of importance. In its great days it negotiated a treaty with Campvere, and one of its judgments was given effect to by Edward I. in the Parliament of Newcastle, 1292.
Burghs of Regality and of Barony held in vassalage of some great lordship, lay or ecclesiastical, but were always in theory or in practice created by Crown grant. They received jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters, generally cumulative with that of the Baron or the Lord of Regality, who in some cases obtained the right of nominating magistrates. Powers to hold markets and to levy customs were likewise given to these Burghs.
The Scotch burghs emerged slowly into political importance. In 1295 the procurators of six burghs ratified the agreement for the marriage of Edward Balliol; and in 1326 they were recognized as a Third Estate, granting a tenth penny on all rents for the king's life, if he should apply it for the public good. The Commissioners of Burghs received from the Exchequer their costages or expenses of attending Parliament. The burghs were represented in the Judicial Committee, and in the Committee on Articles appointed during the reign of James V. After the Reformation, in spite of the annexation of kirk lands to the Crown, and the increased burdens laid on temporal lands, the proportion of general taxation borne by the burghs (viz., 1s. 6d.) was expressly preserved by Act 1587, c. 112. The number of commissioners, of course, fluctuated from time to time. Cromwell assigned ten members to the Scotch burghs in the second Parliament of Three Nations (1654). The general practice until 1619 had been, apparently, that each burgh should send two members. In that year (by an arrangement with the Convention of Burghs) certain groups of burghs returned one member, Edinburgh returning two. Under Art. 22 of the Treaty of Union the number of members for Royal Burghs was fixed at fifteen, who were elected in Edinburgh by the Magistrates and Town Council, and in the groups of burghs by delegates chosen ad hoc. See Parliament. (See Connel, History of the Constitution of Towns; Stubbs' Constitutional History of England, vol. i.)
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