Burgage

“ When the burgesses of Hereford were asked by a neighbouring town to give an account of their constitution they proudly dwelt upon the freedom they had won. “We do not use,” they say, “to do fealty or any other foreign service to the lord of the fees for our tenements, but only the rents arising out of the said tenements; because we say that we hold our tenements by the service of burgage, or as [200] burgesses, so that we have not any other lord between our lord the king and us.” ”

“ Against a background of villeinage and week-work, the borough begins to stand out as the scene of burgage tenure. The service by which the burgess holds his tenement is a money rent. This may lead to a large increase in the number of boroughs. If a lord enfranchises a manor, abolishes villein customs, takes money rents, allows his tenants to farm the court and perhaps also to farm a market that he has acquired from the king, he will be said to create a liber burgus [851] . Merchant gilds, elected bailiffs, elected mayors and common seals will appear and will complicate the question. ”

“ If any one holds of us by fee-farm, by socage, or by burgage, and holds also land of another lord by knight's service, we will not (by reason of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage) have the wardship of the heir, or of such land of his as is of the fief of that other; nor shall we have wardship of that fee-farm, socage, or burgage, unless such fee-farm owes knight's service. ”

“ And the mesne lord will often be a very great man, some prelate or baron with a widespread honour. Within the borough he will, to use the language of Domesday Book, ‘have’ or ‘hold’ a small group of burgesses, and sometimes they will be reckoned as annexed to or as ‘lying in’ some manor distant from the town. It seems generally expected that the barons of the county should have a few burgages apiece in the county town. ”

“ We first hear of the town houses that are held by great men as parts of their manors, and then we hear that ‘besides these houses there are in the borough nineteen burgesses who have nineteen houses with sake and soke and all customs.’ Now we can not easily believe that the burgess’s house is a jurisdictional area, or that in exacting a mulct from one who commits a crime in that house the burgess will be playing the magistrate or exercising a right to do justice or take the profits of justice by virtue of a grant made to him by the king. ”

“ The borough community and its lord.
We have seen that in the boroughs a group of men is formed whose principle of cohesion is not to be found in land tenure. The definition of a burgess may involve the possession of a house within or hard by the walls; but the burgesses do not coalesce as being the tenants or the men of one lord; and yet coalesce they will. They are united in and by the moot and the market-place, united under the king in whose peace they traffic; and then they are soon united over against the king, who exacts toll from them and has favours to grant them. ”

“ But so human a story did something to cheer up the weary paths of Dryasdust, and he hands it on to you in the hope that you will not find it absolutely wanting in instruction and amusement. Now my burglary was the burglary of the king’s treasury, or more precisely, of the treasury of the king’s wardrobe, within the precincts of the abbey at Westminster. ”

“ We can make an attack on that house like a real gang of burglars, and enter it in true burglar style. I've always wanted to have a chance to commit a burglary. There's nothing so exciting in the world as a burglar's life,—but what chance do you get to lead one? None at all. I was brought up to believe that it's all wrong,—many's the time my poor old grandmother told me: 'Never be a burglar.' And the effect of that teaching has not worn off. I still believe that it's wrong to be a burglar. Besides, they put you in jail for it. ”

“ These are the laws and customs which the burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne had in the time of Henry King of England and ought to have.
[1] Burgesses can distrain [take property of another until the other performs his obligation] upon foreigners within, or without their own market, within or without their own houses, and within or without their own borough without the leave of the reeve, unless the county court is being held in the borough, and unless [the foreigners are] on military service or guarding the castle.
[2] A burgess cannot distrain upon a burgess without the leave of the reeve. ”

“ Neither can a burgess do [trial by] battle against a foreigner, unless he first go out of the borough.
[15] No merchant, unless he be a burgess, may buy [outside] the town either wool or leather or other merchandise, nor within the borough except [from] burgesses.
[16] If a burgess incur forfeit, he shall give six ounces [10s.] to the reeve.
[17] In the borough there is no merchet [payment for marrying off a daughter] nor heriot nor bloodwite [fine for drawing blood] nor stengesdint [fine for striking with a stick] . ”

“ Invested with this peace the town becomes, like a royal palace or the shrine of a saint, a sanctuary protected by special pains and penalties; the burgess stands to the king in the same relation as the widow and the orphan; to do him wrong is an outrage against the royal majesty. Next comes the right of trade. The burgesses are allowed to commute their servile dues and obligations for a fixed money-rent, that they may be at liberty for pursuits more lucrative than agriculture. They also receive a licence to hold a weekly market, and possibly a yearly fair as well ”

“ But at least in this last case, the burgesses may be new-comers, or rather perhaps we may see that an old idea is giving way to a newer idea of a borough, and that if men engaged in trade or handicraft settle round a market-place and pay money-rents to a lord they will be called burgesses, though the town is no national fortress. ”

“ She gave utterance to a faint scream as the burglar entered her sleeping chamber, and modestly covered her neck and shoulders, which were bare, with a shawl.
“For the love of mercy, how came you here, sir?” she inquired in evident alarm.
“My dear young lady,” said Peace, in his most persuasive tones, “do not be alarmed. Take pity on a poor fellow who seeks your protection.”
“Protection, you must be some madman, or else—​a—​a burglar.” ”

“ Traces are few in Domesday Book of any property that can be regarded as the property of a nascent municipal corporation, and even of any that can be called the joint or common property of the burgesses. In general each burgess holds his house in the town of the king or of some other lord by a several title, and, if he has land in the neighbouring fields, this also he holds by a several title. ‘In the borough of Nottingham there were in King Edward’s day 183 burgesses and 19 villani. To this borough belong 6 carucates of land for the king’s geld and one meadow and certain small woods ... ”

“ Burgess (bur′jes) , Bur′gher, an inhabitant of a borough: a citizen or freeman: a magistrate of certain towns: one able to take the usual burgesses' oath (see Antiburgher) .—adj. Bur′ghal, relating to a burgh.—n. Burg′omaster, the chief magistrate of a German or a Dutch borough, answering to the English term mayor.—Burgh of barony, a corporation consisting of the inhabitants of a determinate tract of land within the barony, and municipally governed by magistrates and a council whose election is either vested in the baron superior of the district, or vested in the inhabitants themselves ”

“ He was a burglar indeed!
He crouched for a time, all ears and peering eyes. Outside was a scampering and rustling, and for a moment he repented of his enterprise. A short “miaow,” a spitting, and a rush into silence, spoke reassuringly of cats. His courage grew. He stood up. Every one was abed, it seemed. So easy is it to commit a burglary, if one is so minded. ”

“ If I should waken in the night, and find a burglar in my room, I think it would kill me, and I know I should scream, and then there is no knowing what they might do. If ever you think there is a burglar in the house, Nixie, whatever you do, don’t scream or make any noise. It would be better to have one’s things stolen, than to be killed by burglars for screaming. ”

“ How good it feels to inhabit that burg, built by Gallic slaves who were carried away from their own fields, homes and families, and who were made to carry on their backs, under the threat of the clubs of your warriors, the timber from the woods, the stones from the mountain, the sand from the river and the lime from the bowels of the earth—after which, streaming with sweat, broken with fatigue, dying with hunger, receiving for their only pittance a handful of beans, they lay down upon the damp ground, their heads barely sheltered with a roof of rushes! ”

“ Of all the more hazardous—though thoroughly romantic—professions, none is more interesting than that of burgling. The art of burgling and housebreaking has positively developed into a fine art, and, although we do not admire the members of the craft, yet every individual representative of it is undeniably interesting. There is something irresistibly tantalizing, yet at the same time fascinating, about your average burglar. ”

“ I find you in the dead of night on my property after scaling a locked enclosure, handling my implements, and for all I know getting ready to carry them away. It’s as though I woke up in my room at night and found a burglar rifling my bureau drawers. The fact that he didn’t have time to get anything before I nabbed him wouldn’t prevent his being tried and convicted for burglary. I imagine that if I chose to hand you over they’d put you where the dogs couldn’t bite you for a while. ”

“ And this is the burglar, smiling in scorn, who escaped by the rope-ladder, window-sill-borne, and evaded the Bobbies all forlorn, called on by the man, unshaven, unshorn, aroused from his sleep in the early morn, by the dog who barked at the bell, agitated by the telephone, set in motion by the wire, attached to the burglar-alarm, connected with the show-case, reached by way of the rope-ladder, hooked to the window, plastered with brown-paper and treacle, belonging to the House that Bill burgled. ”

“ For a burglar to sleep at the top of the stairs:
The policemen, she says, are so terribly sure
That daily the number of burglars gets fewer.
They are caught by the dozen as morning comes round
And dragged off to cells very deep underground:
And there they repent of their wicked bad lives,
With occasional visits from children and wives. ”

“ The citizen in the bed looked at the round end of the burglar's pistol and lay still.
"Now hold up both your hands," commanded the burglar.
The citizen had a little, pointed, brown-and-gray beard, like that of a painless dentist. He looked solid, esteemed, irritable, and disgusted. He sat up in bed and raised his right hand above his head.
"Up with the other one," ordered the burglar. "You might be amphibious and shoot with your left. You can count two, can't you? Hurry up, now."
"Can't raise the other one," said the citizen, with a contortion of his lineaments. ”

“ Not a word had been spoken during this entire proceeding, and now, in silence, the two men picked up the satchel, and with an appearance of unconcern upon their faces, passed out of the bank and stood upon the sidewalk.
The streets were filled with men and women hurrying from their work. The sun was shining brightly in the heavens, and into this throng of human beings, all intent upon their own affairs, these bold burglars recklessly plunged, and made their way safely out of the village. ”

“ But what is uncommon about it, and what at first sight put me off the track, is that these burglars had the cheek to pierce the wall with an opening large enough to enable them to remove the furniture of a house."
"It's true," said the Duke. "The opening's as large as a good-sized window. Those burglars seem capable of everything—even of a first- class piece of mason's work." ”

“ The burglar stepped inside the window quickly, and then he took his time. A burglar who respects his art always takes his time before taking anything else.
The house was a private residence. By its boarded front door and untrimmed Boston ivy the burglar knew that the mistress of it was sitting on some oceanside piazza telling a sympathetic man in a yachting cap that no one had ever understood her sensitive, lonely heart. ”

“ In towns combination is natural. The habits of burghers, their occupations, their diversion, their business, their idleness, continually bring them into mutual contact. Their virtues and their vices are sociable; they are always in garrison; and they come embodied and half-disciplined into the hands of those who mean to form them for civil or military action. ”

“ Sometimes a rustic might flee to one of the chartered towns, and if for the space of a year and a day he could find shelter under its protecting customs from the pursuit of his lord’s justice, he was thenceforth a free burgher. ”

“ The burglar who sneaks up to a house while the inmates are asleep, and plies his nefarious calling in silence and under shade of night, and is ready to start off, leaving everything behind him, the moment the alarm is raised, is a contemptible miscreant, for whom the gallows is almost too mild a form of punishment. ”