Title for privileged citizens in medieval European towns
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Burgher was a rank or title of a privileged citizen of a medieval to early modern European town. Burghers formed the pool from which city officials could be drawn,[citation needed] and their immediate families that formed the social class of the medieval bourgeoisie.
Admission
Entry into burgher status varied from country to country and city to city.[1] In Hungary, proof of ownership of property in a town was a condition for acceptance as a burgher.[2]
Privileges
Any crime against a burgher was taken as a crime against the city community.[citation needed] In Switzerland, if a burgher was assassinated, the other burghers had the right to bring the alleged murderer to trial by judicial combat.[3]
In the Netherlands, burghers were often exempted from corvée or forced labour, a privilege that was later extended to the Dutch East Indies.[4] Effectively, only burghers could join the city guard in Amsterdam because in order to join, guardsmen had to purchase their own expensive equipment. Membership in the guard was often a stepping stone to political positions.
^Deboeck, Guido J. (2007). Flemish DNA & Ancestry: History of Three Families Over Five. Dokus. ISBN978-0972552677. Those who lived outside the city could still become burghers but they would be 'buiten-poorters' or outside burghers. The way to become a burgher was different from town to town and city to city; some cities required registration ....
^Teich, Mikuláš; Kováč, Dušan; Brown, Martin D. (2011). Slovakia in History. Cambridge University Press. p. 49. ISBN978-1139494946. Proof of ownership of property in a given town – that is, purchase of a house or land or acquisition of the same by marriage to the daughter or widow of a burgher – was a significant condition for acceptance as a burgher.
^Simond, Louis (1822). Switzerland; or, A Journal of a Tour and Residence in that Country. If a burgher was assassinated, all the others had a right to bring the supposed murderer to trial by judicial combat, assumere duellum; and the chronicle of 1288 adds a singular circumstance, Duellum fuit in Berne inter virum et mulierem, sed ....
^Bosma, Ulbe; Raben, Remco (2008). Being "Dutch" in the Indies: A History of Creolization and Empire. ISBN978-9971693732. ... abandoned the idea of equal rights because not all Christians could be labeled 'Burgher'. If someone were subject to a local head, they were obliged to perform corvee, but anyone categorized as a Burgher was exempt from this.
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