CURIA REGIS, or Aula Regis, a term used in England from the time of the Norman Conquest to about the end of the 13th century to describe a council and a court of justice, the composition and functions of which varied considerably from time to time. Meaning in general the “king’s court,” it is difficult to define the curia regis with precision, but it is important and interesting because it is the germ from which the higher courts of law, the privy council and the cabinet, have sprung. It was, at first the general council of the king, or the commune concilium, i.e. the feudal assembly of the tenants-in-chief; but it assumed a more definite character during the reign of Henry I., when its members, fewer in number, were the officials of the royal household and other friends and attendants of the king. It was thus practically a committee of the larger council, and assisted the king in his judicial work, its authority being as undefined as his own. About the same time the curia undertook financial duties, and in this way was the parent of the court of exchequer (curia regis ad scaccarium). The members were called “justices,” and in the king’s absence the chief justiciar presided over the court. A further step was taken by Henry II. In 1178 he appointed five members of the curia to form a special court of justice, and these justices, unlike the other members of the curia, were not to follow the king’s court from place to place, but were to remain in one place. Thus the court of king’s bench (curia regis de banco) was founded, and the foundation of the court of common pleas was provided for in one of the articles of Magna Carta. The court of chancery is also an offshoot of the curia regis. About the time of Edward I. the executive and advising duties of the curia regis were discharged by the king’s secret council, the later privy council, which is thus connected with the curia regis, and from the privy council has sprung the cabinet.
In his work Tractatus de legibus Angliae, Ranulf de Glanvill treats of the procedure of the curia regis as a court of law. See W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. i. (Oxford, 1883); R. Gneist, Englische Verfassungsgeschichte, English translation by P. A. Ashworth (London, 1891); A. V. Dicey, The Privy Council (London, 1887); and the article [Privy Council].
(A. W. H.*)
CURIA ROMANA, the name given to the whole body of administrative and judicial institutions, by means of which the pope carries on the general government of the Church; the name is also applied by an extension of meaning to the persons who form part of it, and sometimes to the Holy See itself. Rome is almost the only place where the word curia has preserved its ancient form; elsewhere it has been almost always replaced by the word court (cour, corte), which is etymologically the same. Even at Rome, however, the expression “papal court” (corte romana) has acquired by usage a sense different from that of the word curia; as in the case of royal courts it denotes the whole body of dignitaries and officials who surround and attend on the pope; the pope, however, has two establishments: the civil establishment, in which he is surrounded by what is termed his “family” (familia); and the religious establishment, the members of which form his “chapel” (capella). The word curia is more particularly reserved to the tribunals and departments which actually deal with the general business of the Church.
I. In order to understand the organization of the various constituent parts of the Roman Curia, we must remember that the modern principle of the separation of powers is unknown to the Church; the functions of each department General remarks. are limited solely by the extent of the powers delegated to it and the nature of the business entrusted to it; but each of them may have a share at the same time in the legislative, judicial and administrative power. Similarly, the necessity for referring matters to the pope in person, for his approval or ratification of the decisions arrived at, varies greatly according to the department and the nature of the business. But on the whole, all sections of the Curia hold their powers direct from the pope, and exercise them in his name. Each of them, then, has supreme authority within its own sphere, while the official responsibility belongs to the pope, just as in all governments it is the government that is responsible for the acts of its departments. Of these official acts, however, it is possible to distinguish two categories: those emanating directly from the heads of departments are generally called Acts of the Holy See (and in this sense the Holy See is equivalent to the Curia); those which emanate direct from the pope are called Pontifical Acts. The latter are actually the Apostolic Letters, i.e. those documents in which the pope speaks in his own name (bulls, briefs, encyclicals, &c.) even when he does not sign them, as we shall see. The Apostolic Letters alone may be ex cathedra documents, and may have the privilege of infallibility, if the matter admit of it. There are also certain differences between the two sorts of documents with regard to their penal consequences. But in all cases the disciplinary authority is evidently the same; we need only note that acts concerning individuals do not claim the force of general law; the legal decisions serve at most to settle matters of jurisprudence, like the judgments of all sovereign courts.
The constituent parts of the Roman Curia fall essentially into two classes: (1) the tribunals and offices, which for centuries served for the transaction of business and which continue their activity; (2) the permanent commissions Division. of cardinals, known by the name of the Roman Congregations. These, though more recent, have taken precedence of the former, the work of which they have, moreover, greatly relieved; they are indeed composed of the highest dignitaries of the church, the cardinals (q.v.), and are, as it were, subdivisions of the consistory (q.v.), a council in which the whole of the Sacred College takes part.
II. The Roman Congregations.—The constitution of all of these is the same; a council varying in numbers, the members of which are cardinals, who alone take part in the deliberations. One of the cardinals acts as president, Roman Congregations. or prefect, as he is called; the congregation is assisted by a secretary and a certain number of inferior officials, for secretarial and office work. They have also consultors, whose duty it is to study the subjects for consideration. Their deliberations are secret and are based on prepared documents bearing on the case, written, or more often printed, which are distributed to all the cardinals about ten days in advance. The deliberations follow a simplified procedure, which is founded more on equity than on the more strictly legal forms, and decisions are given in the shortest possible form, in answer to carefully formulated questions or dubia. The cardinal prefect, aided by the secretariate, deals with the ordinary business, only important matters being submitted for the consideration of the general meeting. To have the force of law the acts of the congregations must be signed by the cardinal prefect and secretary, and sealed with his seal. Practically the only exception is in the cases of the Holy Office, and of the Consistorial Congregation of which the pope himself is prefect; the acts of the first are signed by the “notary,” and the acts of the second by the assessor.
We may pass over those temporary congregations of cardinals known also as “special,” the authority and existence of which extend only to the consideration of one particular question; and also those which had as their object various aspects of the temporal administration of the papal states, which have ceased to exist since 1870. We deal here only with the permanent ecclesiastical congregations, the real machinery of the papal administration. Some of them go quite far back into the 16th century; but it was Sixtus V. who was their great organizer; by his bull Immensa of the 22nd of January 1587, he apportioned all the business of the Church (including that of the papal states) among fifteen Congregations of cardinals, some of which were already in existence, but most of which were established by him; and these commissions, or those of them at least which are concerned with spiritual matters, are still working. A few others have been added by his successors. Pius X., by the constitution Sapienti Consilio of the 29th of June 1908, proceeded to a general reorganization of the Roman Curia: Congregations, tribunals and offices. In this constitution he declared that the competency of these various organs was not always clear, and that their functions were badly arranged; that certain of them had only a small amount of business to deal with, while others were overworked; that strictly judicial affairs, with which the Congregations had not to deal originally, had developed to an excessive extent, while the tribunals, the Rota and the Signatura, had nothing to do. He consequently withdrew all judicial affairs from the Congregations, and handed them over to the two tribunals, now revived, of the Rota and the papal Signatura; all affairs concerning the discipline of the sacraments were entrusted to a new Congregation of that name; the competency of the remaining Congregations was modified, according to the nature of the affairs with which they deal, and certain of them were amalgamated with others; general rules were laid down for the expedition of business and regarding personnel; in short, the work of Sixtus V. was repeated and adapted to later conditions. We will now give the nomenclature of the Roman Congregations, as they were until 1908, and mentioning the modifications made by Pius X.