er
person as lord at a certain rent. The term is of less practical importance
in the English than in the Scottish system, where it held an important
place in the practice of conveyancing, real property having been generally
divided into feudal-holding and burgage-holding. Since the Conveyancing
(Scotland) Act 1874, there is, however, not much distinction between
burgage tenure and free holding. It is usual to speak of the English
burgage-tenure as a relic of Saxon freedom resisting the shock of the
Norman conquest and its feudalism, but it is perhaps more correct to
consider it a local feature of that general exemption from feudality
enjoyed by the _municipia_ as a relic of their ancient Roman constitution.
The reason for the system preserving for so long its specifically distinct
form in Scottish conveyancing was because burgage-holding was an exception
to the system of subinfeudation which remained prevalent in Scotland when
it was suppressed in England. While other vassals might hold of a graduated
hierarchy of overlords up to the crown, the burgess always held directly of
the sovereign. It is curious that while in England the burgage-tenure was
deemed a species of socage, to distinguish it from the military holdings,
in Scotland it was strictly a military holding, by the service of watching
and warding for the defence of the burgh. In England the franchises enjoyed
by burgesses, freemen and other consuetudinary constituencies in burghs,
were dependent on the character of the burgage-tenure. Tenure by burgage
was subject to a variety of customs, the principal of which was
Borough-English (_q.v._).

See Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_ (1898).

BURGAS (sometimes written _Burghaz_, _Bourgas_ or _Borgas_, and, in the
middle ages, _Pyrgos_), a seaport, and capital of the department of Burgas,
in Bulgaria (Eastern Rumelia), on the gulf of Burgas, an inlet of the Black
Sea, in 42 deg. 27' N. and 27 deg. 35' E. Pop. (1906) 12,846. Burgas is built on a
low foreland, between the lagoons of Ludzha, on the north, and Kara-Yunus,
on the west; it faces towards the open sea on the east, and towards its own
harbour on the south. The principal approach is a broad isthmus on the
north-west, along which runs the railway to Philippopolis and Adrianople.
Despite its small population and the rivalry of Varna and the Turkish port
of Dedeagatch, Burgas has a considerable transit trade. Its fine harbour,
formally opened in 190