CURETUS, a tribe of South American Indians, inhabiting the country between the rivers of Japura and Uaupés, 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, Römisches Staatsrecht, iii. p. 89 ff. (Leipzig, 1887); Römische Forschungen i. p. 140 ff. (Berlin, 1864, &c.); Clason, “Die Zusammensetzung der Curien und ihrer Comitien” (Kritische Erörterungen i., Rostock, 1871); Karlowa, Römische 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, Realencyclopädie, 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]).
See Du Cange, Gloss. med. et inf. Lat. (1883), s.v. “Curia.”