The Etymology of " Churchy 191 



^'church." We have seen above, the Latin cura is used both 

 of military commands and of civil administration. From this 

 meaning the French cure (Sain ton geois, chure; Wallon, Keure ;) 

 passed into the meaning of 'charge ecclesiastique, cure d'dme 

 (Seelsorge). In Old French it is still found in the meaning of 

 soin, souci. Then it passed into the meaning of the " house of 

 the priest," but not of the " house of the Lord," for ecclesia had 

 already been firmly established.* 



In Low Latin we find curatus, (celui qui est charge d'un 

 soin, du soin des ames), whence French, cure ; Italian, curato ; 

 while the Spanish employs the abstract cura. D'Arnis' Lexi- 

 con ad Scriptores MedJas et Infimae Latinitatis mentions, be- 

 sides curatus^ curator=c\xBios, ecclesiae; and also the following 

 suggestive phrases : CURATA ecclesia, parochial! s, cui prasest 

 curio; curatum heneficium, sacerdotale, ad quod pertinet cura 

 animarum. Of special interest is the form czmto=curatura, 

 which exhibits the trace of a phonetic decay, as postulated 

 above. 



In the preceeding we have endeavored to follow the two 

 fundamental rules of etymological research: 1. "No etymol- 

 ogy is admissible which refuses to account for all the letters 

 of the word it proposes to explain, without a single exception; 



*In the documents of the Merovingian epoch we find ecclesia or basili- 

 ca used for the sacred edifice, but neYGV templum. Also Monasterium and 

 coenobium signify church, while a monastery was called " casa Dei." 

 From monasterium we have in A. S. minster, G. miinster, in O. F. mons- 

 ter, mushier, which were lost in Modern French. It is strange that the 

 forms mouster and iglise or esglise which were brought to England by the 

 Norman-French, and were employed in the middle of the XIII century 

 (Cf. Romanz de un chivaler e de sa dame e de un clerk, ed. by P. Meyer, 

 Romania, Vol. I), did not supplant the A. S. cirice, for we owe to the Nor- 

 mans most of the terms pertaining to the church. See R. M. Morris, 

 Historical Outlines of English Accidence, p. 30. This shows, that the 

 word from which developed cirice, must be older than the ecclesiastical 

 terms which entered the Anglo-Saxon in the 6th century, so that the 

 words of Robert of Gloucester apply to it: Ac lowe men holdeth to Eng- 

 liss and to hor owe speche yute. 



