Definition
A concurator is a co-curator — a person appointed jointly with one or more others to serve as guardian or curator over an individual who lacks legal capacity to manage their own affairs. The term originates in Roman civil law and describes the collaborative guardianship arrangement in which two or more curators share responsibility for the person or property of a ward, rather than a single curator acting alone.
The concurator holds the same legal office as a curator but does so alongside another appointee. Authority and responsibility are shared rather than divided, unless the appointing authority specifies otherwise.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in historical sources rooted in the civil law tradition. Researchers working in Louisiana, Quebec, or other mixed civil law jurisdictions may encounter concurator in older guardianship and succession records, particularly probate materials from the nineteenth century or earlier. In common law jurisdictions, the concept exists functionally — courts routinely appoint co-guardians — but the Latin term concurator is rarely used; common law materials instead use co-guardian or joint guardian.
The primary research trap is terminological displacement: a researcher working in common law sources looking for the functional equivalent of concurator will not find that word. Searching for co-guardian or joint guardian is necessary. Conversely, a researcher in civil law or mixed-jurisdiction sources who encounters concurator should not assume the term implies any special or elevated authority beyond that of a standard curator acting jointly.
Burrill cites the Institutes (Inst. 1.24.1) as the foundational source, which grounds this term firmly in Justinianic civil law rather than medieval or early modern common law development. Historical legal dictionaries do not discuss any evolution in the term's meaning because it remained a narrow, stable technical descriptor throughout its use.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree exactly on the meaning: a joint or co-curator, or guardian, drawn from the civil law. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) offer identical definitions. Burrill adds the citation to the Institutes and supplies the Latin label, confirming the term's direct derivation from Roman law without significant medieval or common law adaptation.
None of the sources elaborate on the mechanics of how authority was divided or shared between concurators, on the procedural requirements for appointing multiple curators, or on how disputes between concurators were resolved. Researchers needing that detail must consult the primary civil law sources directly — particularly the Institutes and Digest — or secondary works on Roman guardianship.
The historical dictionaries do not flag any jurisdictional variation or English common law reception, which is itself informative: concurator was not absorbed into standard English legal vocabulary and remained a term of art in civil law discourse.
Jurisdictional Note
In Louisiana and other jurisdictions with civil law foundations, curator and related terminology (including concurator) appear in historical legal instruments and older code provisions governing interdiction and guardianship. Modern Louisiana law has substantially revised its interdiction framework; contemporary materials use different terminology. Researchers should not assume historical civil law terms map cleanly onto current statutory language in any jurisdiction.