Burghfield - Etymology

Etymology

A Burh is an Old English name for a fortified town or other defended site, (e.g., at Burgh Castle), sometimes centred upon a hill fort though always intended as a place of permanent settlement, its origin was in military defence; "it represented only a stage, though a vitally important one, in the evolution of the medieval English borough and of the medieval town", H. R. Loyn asserted. The boundaries of ancient burhs can often still be traced to modern urban borough limits. Most of these were founded by Alfred the Great in a consciously planned policy that was continued under his son Edward the Elder and his daughter, Æthelflaed, "Lady of the Mercians" and her husband Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia; the Mercian Register tells of the building of ten burhs by Aethelflaed, some as important as Tamworth and Stafford, others now unidentifiable. Some were based on pre-existing Roman structures, some newly built, though some may have been built later. Athelstan granted these burhs the right to mint coinage, and in the tenth and eleventh centuries the firm rule was that no coin was to be struck outside a burh.

A 10th century document called the Burghal Hidage cites 30 burhs in Wessex and three in Mercia (then under the domination of the West Saxon kings), built to defend the region against Viking raids.

The Old English word was related to the verb beorgan (cf. Dutch and German bergen), meaning "to keep, save, make secure". In German Burg means castle or fortress, though so many towns grew up around castles that it almost came to mean city, and is incorporated into many placenames, such as Hamburg, Flensburg and Strasbourg.