CURSORE. – This term was already used among the Romans to designate persons charged, especially by the public authority, with carrying news, documents, etc., to another place. In times closer to our own, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century in Tuscany, judicial officers were sometimes called c.
In canon law, c. is an official attached to ecclesiastical tribunals, whose task is to serve notices of acts and judicial measures. Apart from the slight difference in functions with respect to the apparitor, what has been said concerning the latter (v. APPARITORE) applies in every respect also to the c. For apostolic c., V. FAMIGLIA PONTIFICIA.