MAXIMS OF THE LAW. 163 



inconvenience : but if it be question of personal pain, the 

 law will not compel him to sustain it and expect remedy, 

 because it holdeth no damage a sufficient recompense for 

 a wrong which is corporal. 



As if the sheriff make a false return that I am summoned, 

 whereby I lose my land ; yet because of the inconvenience 

 of drawing all things to incertainty and delay, if the 5 Ed. 4. 80. 

 sheriff s return should not be credited, I am excluded of 

 my averment against it, and am put to mine action of 

 deceit against the sheriff and summoners ; but if the sheriffs H. 6. 3. 

 upon a capias return a cepi corpus et quod est languidus in 

 prisona, there I may come in and falsify the return of the 

 sheriff to save my imprisonment. 



So if a man menace me in my goods, and that he will 

 burn certain evidences of my land which he hath in his 

 hand, if I will not make unto him a bond, yet if I enter 

 into bond by this terror, I cannot avoid it by plea, because 

 the law holdeth it an inconvenience to avoid a specialty by 

 such matter of averment ; and therefore I am put to mine 

 action against such a menacer: but if he restrain my person, 

 or threaten me with a battery, or with the burning of my 7 Ed. 4. 21. 

 house, which is a safety and protection to my person, or 

 with burning an instrument of manumission, which is an 

 evidence of my enfranchisement ; if upon such menace or 

 duresse I make a deed, I shall avoid it by plea. 



So if a trespasser drive away my beasts over another s 13 II. 8. 15. 

 ground, I pursue them to rescue them, yet am I a trespasser 21 H&amp;lt; 7&amp;lt; 28&amp;lt; 

 to the stranger upon whose ground I came : but if a man 

 assail my person, and I fly over another s ground, now am 

 I no trespasser. 



This ground some of the canonists do aptly infer out of 

 Christ s sacred mouth; Amen, est corpus supra vestimentum, 

 where there say vestimentum comprehendeth all outward 

 things appertaining to a man s condition, as lands and goods, 

 which, they say, are not in the same degree with that 

 which is corporal ; and this was the reason of the ancient 

 lex talionis, oculus pro oculo, dens pro dente, so that by that 

 law cprporalis injuria de praterito nonrecipit astimationem: 

 but our law, when the injury is already executed and 

 inflicted, thinketh it best satisfaction to the party grieved 

 to relieve him in damage, and to give him rather profit 

 than revenge ; but it will never force a man to tolerate a 

 corporal hurt, and to depend upon that inferior kind of 

 satisfaction, at in damagiis. 



