completed the work in 1526. A third describes the repairs executed in 1681 by Prince Sherban Cantacuzino; a fourth, the restoration, in 1804, by Joseph, the first bishop. Between 1875 and 1885 the cathedral was reconstructed; and in 1886 it was reconsecrated. Its legends have inspired many Rumanian poets, among them the celebrated V. Alexandri (1821–1890). One tradition describes how Neagoe Bassarab, while a hostage in Constantinople, designed a splendid mosque for the sultan, returning to build the cathedral out of the surplus materials. Another version makes him employ one Manole or Manoli as architect. Manole, being unable to finish the walls, the prince threatened him and his assistant with death. At last Manole suggested that they should follow the ancient custom of building a living woman into the foundations; and that she who first appeared on the following morning should be the victim. The other masons warned their families, and Manole was forced to sacrifice his own wife. Thus the cathedral was built except the roof. So arrogant, however, did the masons become, that the prince bade remove the scaffolding, and all, save Manole, perished of hunger. He fell to the ground, and a spring of clear water, which issued from the spot, is still called after him.
CURTESY (a variant of “courtesy,” q.v.), in law, the life interest which a husband has in certain events in the lands of which his wife was in her lifetime actually seised for an estate of inheritance. As to the historical origin of the custom and the meaning of the word there is considerable doubt. It has been said to be an interest peculiar to England and to Scotland, hence called the “curtesy of England” and the “curtesy of Scotland”; but this is erroneous, for it is found also in Germany and France. The Mirroir des Justices ascribes it to Henry I. K. E. Digby (Hist. Real Prop. chap. iii.) says that it is connected with curia, and has reference either to the attendance of the husband as tenant of the lands at the lord’s court, or to mean simply that the husband is acknowledged tenant by the courts of England (tenens per legem Angliae). The requisites necessary to make tenancy by the curtesy are: (1) a legal marriage; (2) an estate in possession of which the wife must have been actually seised; (3) issue born alive and during the mother’s existence, though it is immaterial whether the issue live or die, or whether it is born before or after the wife’s seisin; in the case of gavelkind lands the husband has a right to curtesy, whether there is issue born or not; but the curtesy extends only to a moiety of the wife’s lands and ceases if the husband marries again. The issue must have been capable of inheriting as heir to the wife, e.g. if a wife were seised of lands in tail male the birth of a daughter would not entitle the husband to a tenancy by curtesy; (4) the title to the tenancy vests only on the death of the wife. The Married Women’s Property Act 1882 has not affected the right of curtesy so far as relates to the wife’s undisposed-of realty (Hope v. Hope, 1892, 2 Ch. 336), and the Settled Land Act 1884, s. 8, provides that for the purposes of the Settled Land Act 1882 the estate of a tenant by curtesy is to be deemed an estate arising under a settlement made by the wife.
See Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law; K. E. Digby, Hist. Real Prop.; Goodeve, Real Property.
CURTILAGE (Med. Lat. curtilagium, from curtile or cortile, a court or yard, cf. “court”), the area of land which immediately surrounds a dwelling-house and its yard and outbuildings. In feudal times every castle with its dependent buildings was protected by a surrounding wall, and all the land within the wall was termed the curtilage; but the modern legal interpretation of the word, i.e. what area is enclosed by the curtilage, depends upon the circumstances of each individual case, such as the terms of the grant or deed which passes the property, or upon what is held to be a convenient amount of land for the occupation of the house, &c. The importance of the word in modern law depends on the fact that the curtilage marks the limit of the premises in which housebreaking can be committed.
CURTIN ANDREW GREGG (1817–1894), American political leader, was born at Bellefonte, Centre county, Pennsylvania, on the 22nd of April 1817, the son of a native of Ireland who was a pioneer iron manufacturer in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the law department of Dickinson College in 1837, was admitted to the bar in 1839, and successfully practised his profession. Entering politics as a Whig, he was chairman of the Whig state central committee in 1854, and from 1855 to 1858 was secretary of the commonwealth. In this capacity he was also ex officio the superintendent of common schools, and rendered valuable services to his state in perfecting and expanding the free public school system, and in establishing state normal schools. Upon the organization of the Republican party he became one of its leaders in Pennsylvania, and in October 1860 was chosen governor of the state on its ticket, defeating Henry D. Foster, the candidate upon whom the Douglas and Breckinridge Democrats and the Constitutional Unionists had united, by 32,000 votes, after a spirited campaign which was watched with intense interest by the entire country as an index of the result of the ensuing presidential election. During the Civil War he was one of the closest and most constant advisers of President Lincoln, and one of the most efficient, most energetic and most patriotic of the “war governors” of the North. Pennsylvania troops were the first to reach Washington after the president’s call, and from first to last the state, under Governor Curtin’s guidance, furnished 387,284 officers and men to the Northern armies. One of his wisest and most praiseworthy acts was the organization of the famous “Pennsylvania Reserves,” by means of which the state was always able to fill at once its required quota after each successive call. In raising funds and equipping and supplying troops the governor showed great energy and resourcefulness, and his plans and organizations for caring for the needy widows and children of Pennsylvania soldiers killed in battle, and for aiding and removing to their homes the sick and wounded were widely copied throughout the North. He was re-elected governor in 1863 and served until January 1867. He was United States minister to Russia from 1869 until 1872, when he returned to America and took part in the Liberal Republican revolt against President U. S. Grant. In 1872–1873 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. Subsequently he joined the Democratic party and was a representative in Congress from 1881 to 1887. He died at his birthplace, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, on the 7th of October 1894.
See William H. Egle’s Life and Times of Andrew Gregg Curtin (Philadelphia, 1896), which contains chapters written by A. K. McClure, Jno. Russell Young, Wayne McVeagh, Fitz John Porter and others.
CURTIS, GEORGE TICKNOR (1812–1894), American lawyer, legal writer and constitutional historian, was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, on the 28th of November 1812. He graduated at Harvard in 1832, was admitted to the bar in 1836, and practised in Worcester, Boston, New York and Washington, appearing before the United States Supreme Court in many important cases, including the Dred Scott case, in which he argued the constitutional question for Scott, and the “legal tender” cases. In Boston he was for many years the United States commissioner, and in this capacity, despite the vigorous protests of the abolitionists and his own opposition to slavery, ordered the return to his owner of the famous fugitive slave, Thomas Sims, in 1852. He was the nephew and close friend of George Ticknor, the historian of Spanish literature, and his association with his uncle was influential in developing his scholarly tastes; while his other personal friendships with eminent Bostonians during the period of conservative Whig ascendancy in Massachusetts politics were of direct influence upon his political opinions and published estimates. He is best known as the author of A History of the Origin, Formation and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, with Notices of its principal Framers (1854), republished, with many additions, as The Constitutional History of the United States from their Declaration of Independence to the Close of their Civil War (2 vols., 1889–1896). This history, which had been watched in its earlier progress by Daniel Webster, may be said to present the old Federalist or “Webster-Whig” view of the formation and powers of the Constitution; and it was natural that Curtis should follow it with
