DEODAND, in our customs, a thing given or for-
feited as it were to God, for the pacification of his
wrath in a case of misadventure, whereby a Christian
soul comes to a violent end, without the fault of any
reasonable creature.
As, if a horse strike his keeper and kill him; if a
man, in driving a cart, falls so as the cart-wheel runs
over him, and presses him to death: if one by felling a
tree, and gives warning to the standers-by to look to
themselves, yet a man is killed by the fall thereof: in
the first place, the horse; in the second, the cart-wheel,
cart, and horses; and in the third, the tree, is Deo dan-
du, "to be given to God," that is, to the king, to be dis-
tributed to the poor by his almoner, for expiation of
this
Dephlogistication, Dephlogisticated Air.
this dreadful event; though effected by irrational, nay, senseless and dead creatures.
Quia qui moritur ad mortem sunt Deodanda.
What moves to death, or kills him dead,
Is Deodand, and forfeited.
This law seems to be an imitation of that in Exodus, chap. xxi. "If an ox gore a man, or a woman, with his horns, so as they die; the ox shall be stoned to death, and his flesh not be eat; so shall his owner be innocent."
Fleta says, the Deodand is to be sold, and the price distributed to the poor, for the soul of the king, his ancestors, and all faithful people departed this life.