CURETON, WILLIAM (1808-1864), English Orientalist, was born at Westbury,
in Shropshire. After being educated at the free grammar school of
Newport, and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became
chaplain of Christ Church, sub-librarian of the Bodleian, and, in 1837,
assistant keeper of MSS. in the British Museum. He was afterwards
appointed select preacher to the university of Oxford, chaplain in
ordinary to the queen, rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and canon
of Westminster. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and a
trustee of the British Museum, and was also honoured by several
continental societies. He died on the 17th of June 1864.
Cureton's most remarkable work was the edition with notes and an
English translation of the Epistles of Ignatius to Polycarp, the
Ephesians and the Romans, from a Syriac MS. that had been found in the
monastery of St Mary Deipara, in the desert of Nitria, near Cairo. He
held that the MS. he used gave the truest text, that all other texts
were inaccurate, and that the epistles contained in the MS. were the
only genuine epistles of Ignatius that we possess--a view which
received the support of F. C. Baur, Bunsen, and many others, but which
was opposed by Charles Wordsworth and by several German scholars, and
is now generally abandoned (see IGNATIUS). Cureton supported his view
by his _Vindiciae Ignatianae_ and his _Corpus Ignatianum,--a Complete
Collection of the Ignatian Epistles, genuine, interpolated and
spurious_. He also edited a partial Syriac text of the _Festal Letters
of St Athanasius_, which was translated into English by Henry Burgess
(1854), and published in the _Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic
Church_; _Remains of a very Ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in
Syriac, hitherto unknown in Europe_; _Spicilegium Syriacum, containing
Remains of Bardesan, Meliton, Ambrose, Mara Bar Serapion_; _The third
Part of the Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus_, which
was translated by Payne Smith; _Fragments of the Iliad of Homer from a
Syriac Palimpsest_; an Arabic work known as the _Thirty-first Chapter
of the Book entitled The Lamp that guides to Salvation_, written by a
Christian of Tekrit; _The Book of Religious and Philosophical Sects_,
by Muhammed al Sharastani; a _Commentary on the Book of Lamentations_,
by Rabbi Tanchum; and the _Pillar of the Creed of the Sunnites_.
Cureton also published several sermons, among which was one entitled
_The Doctrine of the Trinity not Speculative but Practical_. After his
death Dr W. Wright edited with a preface the _Ancient Syriac Documents
relative to the earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa and
the neighbouring Countries, from the Year of our Lord's Ascension to
the beginning of the Fourth Century; discovered, edited and annotated
by the late W. Cureton_.
CURETUS, a tribe of South American Indians, inhabiting the country
between the rivers of Japura and Uaupes, north-western Brazil. They are
short but sturdy, wear their hair long, and paint their bodies. Their
houses are circular, with walls of thatch and a high conical roof. They
are a peaceable people, living in small villages, each of which is
governed by a chief.
CURFEW, CURFEU or COUVRE-FEU, a signal, as by tolling a bell, to warn
the inhabitants of a town to extinguish their fires or cover them up
(hence the name) and retire to rest. This was a common practice
throughout Europe during the middle ages, especially in cities taken in
war. In the law Latin of those times it was termed _ignitegium_ or
_pyritegium_. In medieval Venice it was a regulation from which only the
Barbers' Quarter was exempt, doubtless because they were also surgeons
and their services might be needed during the night. The curfew
originated in the fear of fire when most cities were built of timber.
That it was a most useful and practical measure is obvious when it is
remembered that the household fire was usually made in a hole in the
middle of the floor, under an opening in the roof through which the
smoke escaped. The custom is commonly said to have been introduced into
England by William the Conqueror, who ordained, under severe penalties,
that at the ringing of the curfew-bell at eight o'clock in the evening
all lights and fires should be extinguished. But as there is good reason
to believe that the curfew-bell was rung each night at Carfax, Oxford
(see Peshall, _Hist. of Oxford_), in the reign of Alfred the Great, it
would seem that all William did was to enforce more strictly an existing
regulation. The absolute prohibition of lights after the ringing of the
curfew-bell was abolished by Henry I. in 1100. The practice of tolling a
bell at a fixed hour in the evening, still extant in many places, is a
survival of the ancient curfew. The common hour was at first seven, and
it was gradually advanced to eight, and in some places to nine o'clock.
In Scotland ten was not an unusual hour. In early Roman times curfew may
possibly have served a political purpose by obliging people to keep
within doors, thus preventing treasonable nocturnal assemblies, and
generally assisting in the preservation of law and order. The ringing of
the "prayer-bell," as it is called, which is still practised in some
Protestant countries, originated in that of the curfew-bell. In 1848 the
curfew was still rung at Hastings, Sussex, from Michaelmas to Lady-Day,
and this was the custom too at Wrexham, N. Wales.
CURIA, in ancient Rome, a section of the Roman people, according to an
ancient division traditionally ascribed to Romulus. He is said to have
divided the people into three tribes, and to have subdivided each of
these into ten _curiae_, each of which contained a number of families
(_gentes_). It is more probable that the _curiae_ were not purely
artificial creations, but represent natural associations of families,
artificially regulated and distributed to serve a political purpose. The
local names of _curiae_ which have come down to us suggest a local
origin for the groups; but as membership was hereditary, the local tie
doubtless grew weak with successive generations. Each _curia_ was
organized as a political and religious unit. As a political corporation
it had no recognized activities beyond the command of a vote in the
_Comitia Curiata_ (see COMITIA), a vote whose nature was determined by a
majority in the votes of the individual members (_curiales_). But as a
religious unit the _curia_ had more individual activity. There were, it
is true, ceremonies (_sacra_) performed by all the _curiae_ to _Juno
Curis_ in which each _curia_ offered its part in a collective rite of
the whole people; but each _curia_ had also its peculiar _sacra_ and its
own special place of worship. The religious affairs of each were
conducted by a priest called _curio_ assisted by a _flamen curialis_.
The thirty _curiae_ must always have comprised the whole Roman people;
for citizenship depended on membership of a _gens_ (_gentilitas_) and
every member of a _gens_ was _ipso facto_ attached to a _curia_. They
therefore included plebeians as well as patricians (q.v.) from the date
at which plebeians were recognized as free members of the body politic.
But, just as enjoyment of the full rights of _gentilitas_ was only very
gradually granted to plebeians, so it is probable that a plebeian did
not, when admitted through a _gens_ into a _curia_, immediately exercise
all the rights of a _curialis_. It is unlikely, for instance, that
plebeians voted in the Comitia Curiata at the early date implied by the
authorities; but it is probable that they acquired the right early in
the republican period, and certain that they enjoyed it in Cicero's
time. A plebeian was for the first time elected _curio maximus_ in 209
B.C. The _curia_ ceased to have any importance as a political
organization some time before the close of the republican period. But
its religious importance survived during the principate; for the two
festivals of the Fornacalia and the Fordicidia were celebrated by the
_Curiales_ (Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 527, iv. 635).
The term _curia_ seems often to have been applied to the common shrine
of the _curiales_, and thus to other places of assembly. Hence the
ancient senate house at Rome was known as the Curia Hostilia. The
_curia_ was also adopted as a state division in a large number of
municipal towns; and the term was often applied to the senate in
municipal towns (see DECURIO), probably from the name of the old senate
house at Rome.
AUTHORITIES.--Mommsen, _Romisches Staatsrecht_, iii. p. 89 ff.
(Leipzig, 1887); _Romische Forschungen_ i. p. 140 ff. (Berlin, 1864,
&c.); Clason, "Die Zusammensetzung der Curien und ihrer Comitien"
(_Kritische Erorterungen_ i., Rostock, 1871); Karlowa, _Romische
Rechtsgeschichte_, i. p. 382 ff. (Leipzig, 1885); E. Hofmann,
_Patricische und plebeische Curien_ (Wien, 1879); for the
_Fornacalia_, &c., Marquardt, _Staatsverwaltung_, iii. p. 197
(Leipzig, 1885); for local names of curiae, Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopadie_, iv. p. 1822 (new edition, 1893, &c.); O. Gilbert,
_Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom_ (Leipzig, 1883); for
municipal _curiae_, Mommsen, in _Ephemeris epigraphica_, ii. p. 125;
Schmidt, in _Rheinisches Museum_, xlv. (1890) p. 599 ff. On the Roman
comitia in general see also G. W. Botsford, _Roman Assemblies_ (1909).
(A. M. Cl.)
In medieval Latin the word _curia_ was used in the general sense of
"court." It was thus used of "the court," meaning the royal household
(_aula_); of "courts" in the sense of solemn assemblies of the great
nobles summoned by the king (_curiae solennes_, &c.); of courts of law
generally, whether developed out of the imperial or royal _curia_ (see
CURIA REGIS) or not (e.g. _curia baronis_, Court Baron, _curia
christianitatis_, Court Christian). Sometimes _curia_ means
jurisdiction, or the territory over which jurisdiction is exercised;
whence possibly its use, instead of _cortis_, for an enclosed space, the
court-yard of a house, or for the house itself (cf. the English "court,"
e.g. Hampton Court, and the Ger. _Hof_). The word Curia is now only used
of the court of Rome, as a convenient term to express the sum of the
organs that make up the papal government (see CURIA ROMANA).