Benigne

I. Liberally; favorably; producing or attended with profit a benefit or profit A term ap-; as beneficial interest, beneficial law. To grant or confer a benelaw. A beneficiary; one who benefit of a contract or an esque trust. A benefit or favor. Beneficium benefit of clergy, q. v. privilege. Beneficium competen- Beneficium dl Tisiouis: the ordinis: the privilege of order.; a particular privilege. Beneof competency; a privilege to obligation was entitled by which his subsistence if, before fulfilling to indigence. Beneficium divisprivilege given a surety by which the debt should be made from all ordinis: the privilege of order; the creditor first to exhaust his permanent stipendary estate; the called a fief, feud or fee, qq. v.; the prifilege of the clergy. capital punishment in cases of capicriminals in holy orders, or, what and originally allowed to these both to clergy and laity. Until allowed to one who had made a secpersons having been forbidden marriages. law. Good pleasure, v. Durante law. A service which a tenant and cart. An extraordinary aid granted by voluntary gratuity; later, compulsame. benignly. Benignc faciendse sunt servil'e: interpretations ignorance of laymen, than be void; 'and words not the contrary.

Lat. [from benignus, q. v.] Liberally, favorably, benignly. Benignae faciendae sunt interpretationes, propter simplicitatem laicorum, ut res magis valeat quam pereat. Constructions [of written instruments] are to be made liberally, on account of the simplicity of the laity, [or common people,] in order that the thing [or subject matter] may rather have effect than perish, [or become void.] Co. Litt. 36 a. Broom's Max. 237. This celebrated maxim, one of the oldest in the law, and still frequently quoted, is taken by Lord Coke from Bracton, or rather, made up of portions of the text of that author. Bracton's own words are, (fol. 95 b, closing a sentence,) Benigna enim faciendae sunt interpretationes, ut res magis valeat quam pereat. The words "propter simplicitatem laicorum" are taken from the preceding sentence, and the preceding clause of the same sentence, in which he observes that grants of advowsons by laymen would not be invalidated on account of the incorrect language of the instrument, (propter incongruam dictionem donationis,) but would be established by a benign interpretation, propter simplicitatem laicorum. The antiquity of the rule appears from his remark in the same sentence, — et sic fit interpretatio ab antiquis. Id. fol. 95 a, b.