An unwarranted seizure for debt was fined, as was the distraint of a working ox.
Distraint on a debtor's corn was forbidden by the Code; not only must the creditor give it back, but his illegal action forfeited his claim altogether.
Moreover, after the knight's liability to personal service in war had been modified in the 12th century by the scutage system, it became necessary in the first quarter of the r3th to compel landowners to take up the knighthood which in theory they should have coveted as an honour - a compulsion which was soon systematically enforced (Distraint of Knighthood, 1278), and became a recognized source of royal income.
If he failed to pay his rent, however excessive, his property was rendered liable to distraint and his person to imprisonment.
At one assembly there about a century before Christ, a uniform law of distraint for the whole of Ireland was adopted on the motion of Sen, son of Aige.