Fine For Alienation

In feudal law. A sum of money paid to the lord by a tenant, whenever he had occasion to aliene, or make over his land to another; a sum paid for license to alien the land. One of the incidents of tenure by knightservice.

2 Bl, Com, 71, 72. 1 SUph. Com, 165, 180.

Fines were expressly reserved to copyhold tenures, when tenure by knight-service was abolished by the statute 12 Car. II. Hence they are, in general, still payable is England, to the loi3, on the alienation of copyhold estates.

1 Steph. Com. 208. 7 Id. 47, 48. 1 Crabb's Beal Prop. 615— 628.

FINE (or MULCT.) In criminal law and general practice. A payment of money imposed upon a party as a punishment for an offence. A pecuniary punish*ment imposed by some court of record, and usually under the authority of some statute. See Amercement. According to Spelman, the word fine was not used in this sense, in England, before the Norman invasion. It was applied originally to the heavier kind of payment, imposed for grave offences, (mulcta gravior, gravioribus delictis imposita,) answering to the Saxon vnta major, and so distinguished from an amercement. Spelman, voc. Finis. See Amercement. It was applied also to a pecuniary mulct inflicted by the courts on a stranger, in contradistinction to an amercement, which was imposed upon their own officers and ministers.

8 Co. 40 b, • Griesleg's case. 4 Bl. Com. 380. 4 Steph, Com, 442.

The radical idea of the word corresponds closely with its obvious derivation from the LkI. finis: — ^a sum paid to end a matter; as to atone for an offence; to be delivered from a punishment. Thus, in old practice, where a party had been punished by imprisonment, he was frequently allowed to be discharged on payment of a fine; his punishment being by such payment ended.

Reg. Grig, 222 b, 232. Reg. Jud. 26.

So, in modem practice, where a party is fined and ordered to stand committed until the fine is paid, the payment has the same effect of putting an end to the imprisonment. And in any case where a fine constitutes the sole punishment of a party, its payment puts an end to the offence for which it was imposed, or to the legal liability growing out of such offence. To FINE. To impose a pecuniary punishment; to order, adjudge or sentence that an offender pay a ce Kain sum of money as a punishment for his offence. The Lat. finire anciently signified to pay a fine. See Finire,