Fine

1.

A sum of money paid by an offender as punishment.

2.

A price paid for a privilege.

3.

Fine for alienation: a price paid the lord by the tenant in chivalry for permission to alien his lands.

4.

Fine of lands: a conveyance of lands by acknowledgment of record, which had the effect of barring an estate tail by excluding the issue of the one levying the fine, the cognizor. The cognizee sued out a writ of praecipe on a fictitious covenant of the cognizor to convey the land in question, upon which a primer fine of one tenth the annual value of the land was due the King. The court then granted a licentia concordandi, cong^ d'accorder, or leave to agree, upon which the post fine, or three twentieths the annual value of the land, became due the King. Then followed the acknowledgment, the concord itself, made by the cognizor in open court or before commissioners appointed by dedivms potestatem, that the lands were the property of the cognizee. Then followed the note of the fine, an abstract of the writ of covenant and the concord, which was enrolled in the proper office; and the foot of the fine, containing the whole matter, engrossed in indentures by the chirographer and delivered to the cognizor and cognizee. There fwere four kinds of fines, sur cognizance de droit come ceo que il ad de son done [fr), a fine upon the acknowledgment of the right which the cognizee hath by gift, a feoffment of record; sur cognizance de droit tantum, upon acknowledgment of right merely j sur concessit, upon grant, by acknowledgment of a grant de novo, but of no precedent right; and sur don, grant et render, upon gift, grant, and render, a combination of the first and third kinds.