Grand Burgher [male] or Grand Burgheress [female] (from German: Großbürger [male], Großbürgerin [female]) is a specific conferred or inherited title of medieval German origin and legally defined preeminent status granting exclusive constitutional privileges and legal rights (German: Großbürgerrecht).[1] Grand Burghers were magnates and subordinate only to the Emperor, independent of feudalism and territorial nobility or lords paramount.[1][2]
A member class within the patrician ruling elite,[1][3] the Grand Burgher was a type of urban citizen and social order of highest rank. [1][2] They existed as a formally defined upper social class, made up of affluent individuals and elite burgher families in medieval German-speaking city-states and towns under the Holy Roman Empire. They usually came from a wealthy business or significant mercantile background and estate.[1][3] This hereditary title (and influential constitutional status) was privy to very few individuals and families across Central Europe. The title formally existed well into the late 19th century and early part of the 20th century.[1]
In some instances, the Grand Burghers (Großbürger) or patricians ("Patrizier") constituted the ruling class.[1] This was true in autonomous German-speaking cities and towns of Central Europe that held a municipal charter, town privileges (German town law). Grand Burghers also existed as a ruling class in free imperial cities (such as Hamburg, Augsburg, Cologne, and Bern) that held imperial immediacy, or where nobility had no power of authority or supremacy.
- ^ a b c d e f g Titel: Lehrbuch des teutschen Privatrechts; Landrecht und Lehnrecht enthaltend. Vom Geheimen Rath Schmalz zu Berlin. Theodor von Schmalz, Berlin, 1818, bei Duncker und Humblot. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in München. (English: Textbook of German Private Law; containing State Law and Feudal Law. By Privy Counsellor Schmalz of Berlin. Theodor von Schmalz, Berlin, 1818, Duncker and Humblot.) p. 46, 188 et al., in German, Bavarian State Library in Munich.
- ^ a b Title: The Works of M. de Voltaire (translated from the French with Notes, Historical and Critical by T. Smollett, M.D., T. Francklin, M.A., and Others). Vol. 22, London, Publisher J. Newbery, 1763, General History, of Nobility, p. 155—167.
- ^ a b Wörterbuch der schweizerdeutschen Sprache, Schweizerisches Idiotikon - Dictionary of the Swiss German Language, Verlag Huber Frauenfeld, Frauenfeld, Switzerland, 1881, Volume IV, Page 1584, in German.