A seigneurial borough was an

administrative division Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...

of urban government within a manor of

medieval England England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the econ ...

, that granted a town's citizens or burgesses rights of

burgage tenure Burgage is a medieval land terms, medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century. A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The propert ...

and a degree of self-government under a charter or prescription granted by the

Lord of the Manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

. Unlike fully incorporated boroughs, which received their privileges directly from

The Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

through a

Royal Charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...

and thus had "no lord but the King", seigneurial boroughs remained dependent on local

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

authority.

References

{{Borough status in the United Kingdom Boroughs of the United Kingdom Society in medieval England