in our customs, a thing given or forfeited 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 place, the horse, in the second, the cart-wheel, cart, and horses; and in the third, the tree, is Deodandus, "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 quae 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 ancestors, and all faithful people departed this life.