BURROUGHS (BURROUGH), GEORGE: The most prominent victim of the Salem witchcraft delusion; b. about 1650; executed on Gallows Hill, Salem, Mass., Aug. 19, 1692. He was graduated at Harvard, 1670; preached at Casco (Portland), Me.; at Salem Village (Danvers), Mass., 1680-83, where he suffered because of a church quarrel antedating his pastorate; was in Casco again in 1685, and when the town was destroyed by the French and Indians in May, 1690. In 1692, while acting as preacher at Wells, Me., he was accused of witchcraft by certain of his old parishioners at Salem and arrested; was brought to trial at Salem Aug. 5 and convicted on all indictments against him; before his execution he made an address which moved the hearers to tears and led Cotton Mather to remind the crowd that the devil often appeared as an angel of light.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. L. Sibley, Harvard Graduates, vol. ii., Cambridge, 1881; C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, ib. 1867.

BURROWS, WINFRID OLDFIELD: Church of England; b. at London Nov. 9, 1858. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (B.A., 1881) and Christ Church, Oxford (M.A., 1885), and was ordered deacon in 1886 and priested two years later. He was a tutor of Christ Church from 1884 to 1891, after which he was principal of Leeds Clergy School until 1900. He was then vicar of Holy Trinity, Leeds, for three years (1900-03), and since 1903 has been vicar of St. Augustine's, Edgbaston, Birmingham. He was commissioner for North China in 1894 and for Natal in 1901, as well as surrogate for the diocese of Ripon in 1900-1903 and examining chaplain to the bishop of Wakefield in 1888-1905. Since 1904 he has been archdeacon of Birmingham, and since 1905 has also been examining chaplain to the bishop of Birmingham. In addition to briefer contributions, he has written The Mystery of the Cross (London, 1896).

BURSFELDE, CONGREGATION OF: An association of reformed Benedictine monks, taking its name from the abbey of Bursfelde on the Weser, about 10 m. west of Göttingen, founded by Count Henry of Nordheim and his wife Gertrude in 1093. It had been richly endowed, but by the beginning of the fifteenth century was so far fallen into decay that only a single monk lived there, and he in great poverty, while the church was used by traveling merchants as a stable. Johann of Minden, abbot of Rheinhausen, with Rembert ter List, prior of the Windesheim monastery of Wittenberg, was charged with reforming monastic life in Saxony and Brunswick after the Council of Basel; and the case of Bursfelde was specially commended to him by Duke Otto of Brunswick. He took up the task in 1433, and obtained the monks he needed from the abbey of St. Matthias at Treves. Dying in 1439, he left an equally energetic successor in Johann Hagen, who thoroughly completed the task in the thirty years of his rule, and founded the Congregation, including four other monasteries, with a view to the strict observance of the monastic rule, after the model of the Windesheim Congregation. The spirit grew until Hagen could number thirty-six monasteries, besides some nunneries, under his leadership. The movement spread into the Netherlands also, under the influence of Jan Busch and Nicholas of Cusa. A yearly chapter of the whole congregation was held, always under the presidency of the abbot of Bursfelde. It received numerous privileges from the provincial council held by Nicholas of Cusa in 1451, and was confirmed by Pius II. in 1458 and 1461. It grew after Hagen's death until it numbered 142 monasteries; but in the sixteenth century it began to decline, though there was a brief revival about 1629 and during the Thirty Years' War. Many of the monasteries came into the possession of Protestant princes, including Bursfelde itself, whose Catholic abbot was replaced in 1579 by a Lutheran. Since the foundation of the University of Göttingen, the senior professor of the theological faculty has borne the title of abbot of Bursfelde, with an income derived from the revenues of the foundation. The last head of the Congregation was Bernhard Bierbaum, abbot of Werden, who was elected in 1780 at a chapter held in Hildesheim and died in 1798.

L. SCHULZE.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sources are: The Chronicon Windeshemense by J. Busch, ed. with introduction by K. Grube, Halle, 1886; J. G. Leuckfeld, Antiquitates Bursfeldenses, Leipsic, 1713; Ewelt, Die Anfänge der Bursfelder Benediktiner-Kongregation, in Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte, 3d series, vol. v., Münster, 1865. Consult Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen, i. 141-144, 159, 196.