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Mayor and Burgesses of

French translation: les autorités municipales

GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW)
English term or phrase:Mayor and Burgesses of
French translation:les autorités municipales
Entered by: Jeannine Blanpain

11:30 Dec 28, 2012
English to French translations [PRO]
Law/Patents - Law (general) / court proceedings
English term or phrase: Mayor and Burgesses of
The final Care Plan for a child whose case is submitted to the Court shows it filed as the "Mayor and Burgesses of xxx" [against] xxx.
A literal translation seems inappropriate. I'm considering using a French equivalent like "la Municipalité de xxx".
Any other suggestion?
Thanks in advance.
Jeannine
Jeannine Blanpain
Local time: 13:06
les autorités municipales
Explanation:
Entry of Daryo: \"Mayor and Burgesses of...\" is to be found on many documents involving a Local Authority. If a Local Authority is for example buying/selling land, the contract will be with \"the Mayor and Burgesses of...\"; it won\'t mean the Mayor had any direct involvement in the decision, nor that he will own the property or get the money. \"Mayor and Burgesses of...\" in the ST simply means that one party in the proceedings is the Local Authority concerned.
\"les autorités municipales\" would have the same practical meaning, but should it be changed that way, that\'s another rather thorny question.
Selected response from:

F.A.T Services
France
Local time: 14:06
Grading comment
Thank you very much.
3 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer



Summary of answers provided
5 +1La Municipalité de xxx
Daryo
4 +2le maire et les bourgmestres
B D Finch
3 +2la mairie de
Marion Feildel (X)
3 +2les autorités municipales
F.A.T Services
Summary of reference entries provided
Local Government Act 1933
Daryo

Discussion entries: 6





  

Answers


1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +2
mayor and burgesses of
la mairie de


Explanation:
Un bourgmestre, c'est un maire en Belgique et dans d'autres pays. En France on ne peut pas employer les deux mots ensemble.

Je préfère la mairie à la municipalité, difficile à expliquer pourquoi ! Plus plus centré sur le maire en personne.

Marion Feildel (X)
Türkiye
Local time: 15:06
Native speaker of: French
PRO pts in category: 92

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  GILLES MEUNIER
1 hr
  -> merci Gilles !
neutral  B D Finch: In England, mayors generally (with the possible exception of the directly elected mayor of London) do not have the power to decide on their own to take legal action.//OK, misread that.
1 hr
  -> J'ai écrit "la mairie". Cela ne comprend pas seulement le maire.
neutral  Germaine: Ici, on dirait "le maire et les conseillers" et oui, certains diront que ça revient à dire "la mairie". Néanmoins, on parle de l'identité du demandeur dans une requête et je ne me permettrais pas d'interpréter.
2 hrs
disagree  AllegroTrans: It is perfectly easy to translate "mayor and bugesses" literally into logical, comprehensible French, surely that's the proper way to proceed, not to "convert" the term to what it "might" be in France; this is from UK, not France
3 hrs
agree  Peter LEGUIE: Oui, un bourgmestre est un maire en Belgique? Comment "cumuler" les deux fonctions ? Y aurait-il deux municipalités impliquées ?
3 hrs
  -> merci Peter
agree  Tourlaque (X)
2 days 22 hrs
  -> merci beaucoup et bonne année !
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9 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +2
mayor and burgesses of
les autorités municipales


Explanation:
Entry of Daryo: \"Mayor and Burgesses of...\" is to be found on many documents involving a Local Authority. If a Local Authority is for example buying/selling land, the contract will be with \"the Mayor and Burgesses of...\"; it won\'t mean the Mayor had any direct involvement in the decision, nor that he will own the property or get the money. \"Mayor and Burgesses of...\" in the ST simply means that one party in the proceedings is the Local Authority concerned.
\"les autorités municipales\" would have the same practical meaning, but should it be changed that way, that\'s another rather thorny question.

F.A.T Services
France
Local time: 14:06
Specializes in field
Native speaker of: French
PRO pts in category: 3
Grading comment
Thank you very much.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thank you very much Farid for your help. I will keep the original title and add the French translation "Les autorités municipales" in brackets. Regards, Jeannine


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Daryo: It’s a question of principle - do you leave the original wording (The Mayor – his/her name totally irrelevant – as representing a State authority) or do you adapt it to the logic of the other country (and put the name of the State Authority)?
1 hr
neutral  B D Finch: In some matters, decisions are taken on the council's behalf by its officers; other matters require the elected members to take the decision. Only in the latter case would one use the formula "the Mayor and Burgesses".
16 hrs
agree  Tourlaque (X)
2 days 14 hrs
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11 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 5/5 peer agreement (net): +1
The mayor and burgesses of xxx
La Municipalité de xxx


Explanation:
see reference

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 11 hrs (2012-12-28 23:29:39 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

or, if you really want to stick to the wording in the ST and make it "délicieusement désuet":

"Le Maire et les Bourgeois du Bourg de..."

"HISTOIRE DE LA VILLE DE PÉRIGUEUX ET DE SES INSTITUTIONS MUNICIPALES JUSQU'AU TRAITÉ DE BRÉTIGNY (1360)

... Les hostilités, selon toute apparence, commencèrent au début de l'année 1246

Le sénéchal, arrivé à Périgueux le 19 juillet, requit aussitôt le maire et les bourgeois du Puy-Saint-Front de lui fournir des otages, pour garantir qu'ils s'en remettaient au roi du soin de vider les querelles qu'ils avaient avec le comte et les citoyens. Le maire et les bourgeois s'engagèrent à livrer cent bourgeois, choisis parmi les plus notables, au gré du sénéchal. ..."
[http://www.guyenne.fr/Publications/Villepelet_Perigueux/Vill...]

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 12 hrs (2012-12-29 00:14:06 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

also:
[http://www.maybole.org/history/books/carrickscapital/burgess...]

Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 13:06
Native speaker of: Native in SerbianSerbian, Native in FrenchFrench
PRO pts in category: 266

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
neutral  B D Finch: As I noted to Farid, in some matters, decisions are taken on the council's behalf by its officers; other matters require the elected members to take the decision. Only in the latter case would one use the formula "the Mayor and Burgesses".
14 hrs
  -> A "Child Care Plan" is never discussed nor decided by councillors - that's the exclusive competence of Social Services. //In a similar way, a court case "Regina vs XYZ” doesn’t mean that The Queen is directly involved.
agree  Tourlaque (X): mais la majuscule n'est pas nécessaire ici (puisque le nom de la ville est mentionné ensuite).
2 days 12 hrs
  -> Merci!
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1 hr   confidence: Answerer confidence 4/5Answerer confidence 4/5 peer agreement (net): +2
mayor and burgesses of
le maire et les bourgmestres


Explanation:
I haven't time to check this out; however, having taken many cases to court on behalf of local authorities' housing departments, I know that the plaintiff in our cases was always officially "The London Borough of XXX", not "The Mayor and Burgesses of XXX". I believe that the use of the latter term actually must mean that the case is initiated by the mayor and the elected members, rather than by local authority officers. This is an important difference and it would, therefore, be a translation error to use "les autorités municipales".

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 4 days (2013-01-01 17:57:12 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

As noted below to Tourlaque, possibly "le maire et les élus". It would be a translation error not to indicate that the Council is committed by decision of the elected members, not simply by its officers under their delegated powers. The Collins dictionary definition of "burgess" is decidedly limited and unhelpful, but Wikipedia gives the following (I particularly like the last sentence, but don't cheat):

"Burgess is a word in English that originally meant a freeman of a borough (England) or burgh (Scotland). It later came to mean an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons.

It was derived in Middle English and Middle Scots from the Old French word burgeis, simply meaning "an inhabitant of a town" (cf. burgeis or burges respectively). The Old French word burgeis is derived from bourg, meaning a market town or medieval village, itself derived from Late Latin burgus, meaning "fortress"[1] or "wall". 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. The right to seek shelter within a burg was known as the right of burgess.[2]

The term was close in meaning to the Germanic term burgher, a formally defined class in medieval German cities, (Middle Dutch burgher, Dutch burger and German Bürger). It is also linguistically close to the French term Bourgeois, which evolved from burgeis. An analogous term in Arabic and Urdu is 'burj', which in itself variously means a high wall, a building or in some cases a tower.

The term is also related to burglar, though this developed in the opposite direction in terms of social respectability."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_(title)



B D Finch
France
Local time: 14:06
Works in field
Native speaker of: English
PRO pts in category: 81

Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  AllegroTrans: definitely the way to do it, dangerous to make assumptions here
22 mins
  -> Thanks AT
agree  Yvonne Gallagher
1 hr
  -> Thanks gallagy
agree  Germaine
2 hrs
  -> Thanks Germaine
agree  Béatrice Sylvie Lajoie
4 hrs
  -> Thanks Béatrice
disagree  Daryo: "is initiated by the mayor and the elected members, rather than by local authority officers." not exactly - "Mayor and Burgesses of.." is just the official title of the borough's governing body - its Council
5 hrs
  -> I believe you are wrong. Some contracts and legal actions need approval of the elected members, e.g. land acquisition, contracts for services provision. As a matter of policy, members do not intervene on matters such as granting and reposessing tenancies.
disagree  Tourlaque (X): « maire » et « bourgmestre » sont synonymes en fr. ; il s'agit simplement d'une variante géographique : F pour le premier, B/CH pour le second. Cf. Robert et Larousse. Il s'agit ici du conseil municipal (qui comprend le maire).
2 days 22 hrs
  -> In which case possibly "le maire et les élus". It would be a translation error not to indicate that the Council is committed by decision of the elected members, not simply by its officers under their delegated powers.
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Reference comments


11 hrs
Reference: Local Government Act 1933

Reference information:
The Local Government Act 1933 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated and revised existing legislation that regulated local government in England (except the County of London) and Wales. It remained the principal legislation regulating local government until the Local Government Act 1972 took effect in 1974
...
The actual titles of the councils remained the same:

X county council (or council of the county of X) for administrative counties
The mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Y (or (lord) mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of Z) for boroughs
W urban district council (or urban district council of W)
V rural district council (or rural district council of V)

Rural parishes were governed by parish councils or parish meetings.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 11 hrs (2012-12-28 23:15:42 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Burghs and Burgesses
Burgesses were merchants or craftsmen who owned property in burghs and were allowed to trade in burghs free of charge. They could obtain these rights by inheritance, by marriage, by purchase, or by the gift of a burgh. Burghs were essentially urban settlements which enjoyed trading privileges from medieval times until 1832, and which regulated their own affairs to a greater or lesser extent until the abolition of Scottish burghs in 1975. By 1707 three types of burgh existed: royal burghs, burghs of regality and burghs of barony. Burghs produced characteristic forms of historical record, such as court books, guild records, and registers of deeds. The Scottish Archive Network (SCAN) is in the process of compiling information about Scottish burghs and where historical records relating to burghs can be found.
[http://www.scan.org.uk/familyhistory/myancestor/burgess.htm]

so:

"The Mayor and Burgesses of the borough of xyz..." => "Le Maire et les Bourgeois du Bourg de xyz "


    Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Government_Act_1933
Daryo
United Kingdom
Native speaker of: Native in SerbianSerbian, Native in FrenchFrench
PRO pts in category: 266
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