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 be 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 case, the horse; in the second, the cart wheel,
cart, and horses; and in the third, the tree, is Deo dan-
dar, "to be given to God," that is, to the king, to be
distributed to the poor by his almoner, for expiation of
this dreadful event; though effected by irrational, nay,
senseless and deadly creatures.
Omnia quæ movent 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 eaten; 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 an-
cestors, and all faithful people departed this life.