Obs. exc. Hist. Forms: 6 cursetor, coursetour, -iter, 6–7 -itor, cursitour, 7 -iter, 6– cursitor. [a. Anglo-Fr. coursetour, ad. med.L. cursitor (Ordericus Vitalis) = cursor runner. (App. formed to have the same relation to cursor, that cursitāre has to cursāre.) But the exact derivation in sense 1 is obscure.]
1. One of twenty-four officers or clerks of the Court of Chancery, whose office it was to make out all original writs de cursu, i.e., of common official course or routine, each for the particular shire or shires for which he was appointed.
The office was abolished in 1835.
1523. Act 14–15 Hen. VIII., c. 8. As well the coursetours and other clerkes, as the sixe clerkes of the said Chauncery.
1641. Termes de la Ley, 96. Cursiter is an officer or Clerke belonging to the Chancerie…. They are called Clerkes of the Course in the oath of Clerkes of the Chancery.
a. 1655. Bp. G. Goodman, Crt. James I., I. 280. I have heard that the cursitor’s office of Yorkshire hath been sold for 1,300l.
1703. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), V. 308. Mr. Gillingham, cursitor of Monmouth and Hereford, is dead.
1767. Antiq. Durham Abbey, Descr. Bishoprick, 133. Court of Chancery [Durham], Mr. Thomas Hugall, Cursitor and Examiner.
† b. A secretary. Obs.
1762. trans. Busching’s Syst. Geog., I. 80. The … Lay Inspector … has one or two Secretaries or Cursitors under him.
† 2. A running messenger, courier; also fig. Obs.
1571. Hanmer, Chron. Irel. (1633), 84. [He] sent Scoutes, Cursitors, Messengers … over the whole land.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXVIII. iii. 337. Their office was this, by running … to be cursitours to and fro.
1646. Fuller, Wounded Consc. (1841), 282. The spirits, those cursitors betwixt soul and body. Ibid. (a. 1661), Worthies, III. 101. Dromedaries … are the Cursitors for travell for the Eastern Country.
† 3. One who wanders about the country; a vagabond, tramp. Obs.
1567. Harman (title), A Caueat or Warening, for commen cursetors vulgarely called Vagabones.
1581. Mulcaster, Positions, xxxvii. (1887), 156. Common coursiters, which post about still to suruey all scholes, and neuer staie in one.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. § 68. 167/2. Cursitors or Vagabonds.
1725. New Cant. Dict., Cursitors, the Forty-second Order of Vagabonds.
4. Cursitor baron. The junior or puisne baron of the Exchequer, a subordinate member of the court who attended to matters ‘of course’ on the revenue side. The office was abolished in 1856.
1642. C. Vernon, Consid. Exch., 33–4. The said Cursitor Baron being so called because he is chosen most usually out of some of the best experienced Clerkes of the two Remembrancers, or Clerke of the Pipes Office, and is to informe the Bench and the Kings learned Counsell … what the course of the Exchequer is for the preservation of the same.
1689. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 557. Mr. Bradbury, of the Middle Temple, was lately sworn cursitor baron of the exchequer.
1830. G. Price, Law of Exchequer, 77–8. The Cursitor Baron, or, as he is sometimes called, the Fifth or Puisne Baron of the Court of Exchequer…. He has no judicial authority in the Court of Exchequer as a Court of Law.
