in law, a species of MAINTENANCE, and punished in the same manner; being a bargain with the plaintiff or defendant campum partire, "to divide the land," or other matter sued for between them, if they prevail at law; whereupon the champertror is to carry on the party's suit at his own expense. Thus Champart, in the French law, signifies a similar division of profits, being a part of the crop annually due to the landlord by bargain or custom. In our sense of the word, it signifies the purchasing of a suit, or right of suing; a practice so much abhorred by our law, that it is one main reason why a chafe in action, or thing of which one hath the right but not the possession, is not assignable in common law; because no man should purchase any pretence to sue in another's right. These pests of civil society, that are perpetually endeavouring to disturb the repose of their neighbours, and officiously interfering in other men's quarrels, even at the hazard of their own fortunes; were severally animadverted on by the Roman law; and were punished by the forfeiture of a third part of their goods and perpetual infamy. Hitherto also must be referred the provision of the statute 32 Henry VIII. c. 9, that no one shall sell or purchase any pretended right or title to land, unless the vender hath received the profits thereof for one whole year before such grant, or hath been in actual possession of the land, or of the reversion or remainder; on pain that both purchaser and vender shall each forfeit the value of such land to the king and the prosecutor.