Burgess (title)

A burgess was the holder of a certain status in an English or Scottish borough in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, designating someone of the burgher class.

It originally meant a freeman of a borough or burgh, but later came to be used mostly for office-holders in a town or one of its representatives in the House of Commons of England.

Thereafter a burgess became a title that gave social standing to the office and usually carried with it a role which involved charitable activities of their guild or livery company, as it does today.

In effect, the reference was to the north-west European medieval and renaissance merchant class which tended to set up their storefronts along the outside of the city wall, where traffic through the gates was an advantage and safety in event of an attack was easily accessible.

This clearly implies that at the time when it was composed (late 16th to early 17th century) a burgess was proverbial as being able to provide his wife with beautiful and expensive clothes.