Curia

A curia, plural curiae, is an assembly, council, or , in which public, official, or religious issues are discussed and decided. In ancient Rome, the populace was divided into 30 curiae, which met in order to confirm the election of magistrates, witness the installation of priests, the making of wills, and adoptions. Lesser curiae existed for other purposes. The word curia also came to denote the places of assembly, especially the senate. Similar institutions existed in other towns and cities of Italy. In medieval times, a king's council was often referred to as a curia. Today, the most famous curia is the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church which assists the Roman Pontiff in the hierarchical government of the Church.

The word curia is thought to derive from Old Latin coviria, meaning "a gathering of men" (co-, "together" =vir, "man"). In this sense, any assembly, public or private, could be called a curia. In addition to the Roman curiae, voting assemblies known as curiae existed in other towns of Latium, and similar institutions existed in other parts of Italy. During the republic, local curiae were established in Italian and provincial municipia and coloniae. In imperial times, local magistrates were often elected by municipal senates, which also came to be known as curiae. By extension, the word curia came to mean not just a gathering, but also the place where an assembly would gather, such as a meeting house.

The most important curiae at Rome were the 30 that together made up the comitia curiata. Traditionally ascribed to the kings, each of the three tribes established by Romulus, the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres, was divided into ten curiae. In theory, each gens (family, clan) belonged to a particular curia, although whether this was strictly observed throughout Roman history is uncertain.

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