Deceit The Lie of the Law
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DECEIT: NATURE, RATIONALE AND FORMULATION
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Fraud is a funny thing. The very words “fraud” or “deceit” shudder with moral outrage. Chaucer has the Parson refer to the honest trade between merchants and the dishonest trade in ecclesiastical privileges or simony:1“Now comth deceite bitwixe marchaunt and merchant … That oother marchandise, that men haunten with fraude and trecherie and deceite, with lesynges and false othes, is cursed and dampnable.”