FINE, in the legal sense, a pecuniary penalty inflicted for the less serious offences. Fines are necessarily discretionary as to amount ; but a maximum is generally fixed when the penalty is im posed by statute, and it is an old constitutional maxim that fines must not be unreasonable. In Magna Carta, c. iii, it is ordained "Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti, et pro magno delicto secundum magnitudi nem delicti." The term is also applied to payments formerly made to the lord of a manor on the alienation of land held according to the custom of the manor; to payments made by a lessee on a renewal of a lease, and to other similar payments. Fine also denotes a fictitious suit at law, which played the part of a conveyance of landed prop erty. (See FIcTIoNs.) This, with the kindred fiction of recoveries, was abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act, 1833, which sub stituted a deed enrolled in the court of chancery. (See also ENTAIL; EJECTMENT; PROCLAMATION.)