curfew

A law (commonly an ordinance) which imposes on people (particularly children) the obligation to remove themselves from the streets on or before a certain time of night. An institution supposed to have been introduced into England by order of William the Conqueror, which consisted in the ringing of a bell or bells at eight o'clock at night, at which signal the people were required to extinguish all lights in their dwellings, and to put out or rake up their fires, and retire to rest, and all companies to disperse. The word is probably derived from the French couvre feu, to cover the fire. The curfew is spoken of in 1 Social England 373, as having been ordained by William I, in order to prevent nightly gatherings of the people of England. But the custom is evidently older than the Norman; for we find an order of King Alfred that the inhabitants of Oxford should at the ringing of that bell cover up their fires and go to bed. And there is evidence that the same practice prevailed at this period in France, Normandy, Spain, and probably in most of the other countries of Europe. It was doubtless intended as a precaution against fires, which were very frequent and destructive when most houses were built of wood. It appears to have met with so much opposition that in 1103 we find Henry I, repealing the enactment of his father on the subject; and Blackstone says that, though it is mentioned a century afterwards, it is rather spoken of as a time of night then as a still subsisting custom. Shakespeare frequently refers to it in the same sense