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), who were
magnates and subordinate only to the
Emperor, independent of
feudalism and territorial nobility or
lords paramount. A member class within the
patrician ruling elite, the Grand Burgher was a type of urban citizen and
social order of highest rank, a formally defined
upper social class of affluent individuals and elite
burgher families in medieval
German-speaking city-states and towns under the
Holy Roman Empire, who usually were of a wealthy business or significant mercantile background and estate. This
hereditary title and influential constitutional status, privy to very few individuals and families across
Central Europe, formally existed well into the late 19th century and early part of the 20th century. In autonomous German-speaking cities and towns of Central Europe that held a
municipal charter,
town privileges (
German town law) or were a
free imperial city such as
Hamburg,
Augsburg,
Cologne and
Bern that held
imperial immediacy, where
nobility had no power of authority or supremacy, the Grand Burghers (Großbürger) or patricians ("Patrizier") constituted the
ruling class.