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On the Instituta Cnuti Aliorumque Regum Anglorum
Corresponding Member Of The Royal Historical Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
The short Latin treatise to which I give the above title claims the attention of all who study the mediaeval history of England, in several respects. It is one of the earliest Latin compilations of English law written by a jurist; it serves to explain some Anglo-Saxon ordinances and to reconstruct their text; it contains the only trace, though hidden under a foreign form, of some Anglo-Saxon legal articles; and it sheds some light on the English constitution about A.D. 1100, especially on the remnants and traditions of an earlier policy.
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References
page 78 note 1 It would fill about twenty octavo pages of small print.
page 78 note 1 Ed. F. Liebermann, Halle, 1893, cf. below, n. 25.
page 78 note 2 Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 1840.
page 78 note 3 Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1858.
page 78 note 4 Textus Roffensis (1720), p. 38, which does not follow the Rochester codex, but its transcript, MS. Harley 6323.
page 78 note 5 Archaionomia (1568), f. 93.
page 78 note 6 P. 44.
page 78 note 7 Ed. by me, Halle, 1892.
page 79 note 1 Both the earliest MSS., H and Di, begin with the words Incipitint quaedam instituta de legibus, to which Di adds sec. Cn. r. An., and H: regum Anglorum. As one class of the MSS. ends with the words Expliciunt[-cit PI.] hie institutiones [-cio PI.; const. S.] Cnut regis, Di's reading seems more original.
page 79 note 2 Ed. Schmid, p. 250.
page 79 note 3 The prooemium in Cb belongs to Consiliatio; see below, 25.
page 79 note 4 In MS. H the prooemium of part ii. is written in red ink, and part iii. begins after two blank lines with a large initial.
page 80 note 1 Which, by the way, is untenable, if H's heading (see above, p. 79, note 1) is more authentic than Di's.
page 80 note 2 In. Cn. iii. 6 sq. (quoting ii. 59, 1) and iii. 6, I (quoting ii. 22, I sq.).
page 80 note 3 All the rubrics in S differ from Cb.
page 80 note 4 Though both these parts constitute but one statute, I still prefer to divide it into i. and ii., in order to make our chapter-numbers parallel to those of Cnut in Schmid's edition, so thatIn. Cn. ii. 54 translates Cnut's secular article 54. I shall mark the interpolations by letters. For instance, In. Cn. i. 12 c. means the third interpolation after Cnut's ecclesiastical article 12.
page 80 note 5 After i. Cnut 5, 2: Alfred 20; after i. 9: ii. Eadgar4; after ii. 59: Alfred 15 sqq. 38. 39; after i. II, I and ii. 15, 1: Northumbrians 59. 51.
page 80 note 6 ii. 50.
page 81 note 1 i. 2. I. 2, I; 12. n. io. 13; ii. 52, 1. 52; 71, 3. 71, 2. Into i. 5 the author inserts ii. 43.
page 81 note 2 i. 2, 4. 14. 18. 19, 1. 20. 21. 23–26. ii. 10. 11. 29, 1. 38. 51. 67. 68. 71, I. 81. 84.
page 81 note 3 iii. 46–55. 58 sq.
page 81 note 4 I: Ine 9; 2–4: Ine 13, 1–15; 5–8: Alfr. 29–31, I; 9–39: Alfr. 44–77; 40: Alfr. 19; 41: Alfr. 23; 42 sq.: Merce Pr. 4; 44 sq.: Ath 1 sq.; 45, 1–3: Had 1–9 a; 56 sq.: Grith 6 sqq.; 11 sq.; 56 sq.: Northleod 2 sq.; 60–63, 1: Gethingth 1–8; 64: Ine 58 sq.
page 81 note 5 MSS. A B D G H O., the sources of Quadripartitus (p. 45), Consiliatio (p. vi), and Ld, i.e. Lambarde's edition.
page 81 note 6 In Merce 3 and Ath z our author offers better readings than H, Ld, or the Quadr. source; in Had I. 9 better ones than D and H; but he may have followed O.
page 81 note 7 From G or D ?
page 81 note 8 From G or D or A ?
page 81 note 9 He agrees oftener (c. 1) with H than with D; see, however, c. 7.
page 81 note 10 He surpasses E (39, 2), B (38, 1), H (Ine 13, 1), and agrees with B: Af. 23, 2.
page 81 note 11 He translates words left out by G D (Pr.; ii. 75, 1. 82. iii. 21). B (i. 15. ii. 18). A (i. 12). L (ii. 18); generally he agrees with class A–L (i. 3, 2. 4. 5, 3, ii 73, 1), and especially with L (ii. 30, 7).
page 82 note 1 ii. 30, 2. 71. iii, 45, 2 sq.
page 82 note 2 i. 9.
page 82 note 3 iii. 57 sq.
page 82 note 4 iii. 60.
page 82 note 5 iii. 56, 2. Eadgar aetheling was not a king's son.
page 83 note 1 The Instituta occur almost everywhere by the side of kwbooks composed under Henry I.
page 83 note 2 Cf. below, 16, on the hundreds.
page 83 note 3 See above, 4.
page 83 note 4 ii. 8. 76, 2,
page 83 note 5 iii. 2.
page 83 note 6 i. 12, foresteal: contrastatio causa mali; cf. Wace, Rou. 1692: contrestace.
page 83 note 7 Perhaps the earliest appearance of modern ease in England.
page 84 note 1 Inst. and Quadr. retain many an Old English word beside its Latin translation, because it seems rare, e.g. throtbolla: gurgulio, iii. 16; Alf. 51.
page 84 note 2 iii. 31; Quadripartitus gives correctly lumbos.
page 84 note 3 In Wright-Wuöcker, , Anglo-Saxon Vocabularies, 1885Google Scholar.
page 84 note 4 iii. 13 from Alfred 79; cp. Hn. 93, 7. Another mistake common to both may be due to a similar source: they give for neb in Alf. 48 maxillam instead of ‘ nose, face.’.
page 84 note 5 i. 4. ii. 41. 59 c. iii. 9. Another mistake, tkoden: subliberalis, instead of ‘lord,’ may be explained by a confusion with theow, unfree.
page 84 note 6 ii. 70. iii. 12.
page 84 note 7 If this expression has anything to do with Lex 25, Digest. 28, tit. 2 (Si is qui testamentum faceret, … prius qiiatn secundos exprimeret heredes, obmutuisset), the author received it indirectly through an intermediate source unknown to me.
page 84 note 8 iii. 60 sq.
page 85 note 1 ii. 22; be ii. 16; hyre ii. 52.
page 85 note 2 Radcniht, ii. 59, I;gecydne utlaga, ii. 113;he weres maie, iii. 8; sure et socn, ii. 30, 6.
page 85 note 3 Cðres mannes, i. 7. In iii. 25 the scribe of Textus Roffensis glossed in ilio by grin, perhaps the earliest example of modern groin [Prof. Zupitza kindly confirms that groin may be derived from grin],
page 85 note 4 i. 9. ii. 26. 30, 5. 59 a. iii. 60, I. ii. 71, 2.
page 85 note 5 Codex H, ii. 30, 3.
page 85 note 6 Mceibot instead of mipgbot, i. 2, 4.
page 85 note 7 Cb once belonged to England, and its Copenhagen transcript is modern.
page 85 note 8 i. 11; ii. 15, 1; 25, 1; 33, 2; 59, d, e; 65; i. 3, 2. One might think that he wanted, with an anti-royalistic tendency, to lower the high amounts of the amends and fees due to the king; but some of these payments belong to the earl, and some to the church, which an author full of clerical aspirations would not be likely to diminish to their third part. But in two cases I am unable to explain the alteration of the amounts: he puts XL sol. instead of CL, and XX ii' stead of C in ii. 59 a, translated from Alfred 15.
page 86 note 1 I. Wl. 11.
page 86 note 2 P. 29. About the modern shilling see above, 7.
page 86 note 3 71. 48.
page 86 note 4 i. 3, 2.
page 86 note 5 ii. 37.
page 86 note 6 See below, 21.
page 86 note 7 See above, 6.
page 86 note 8 In the lost archetype of the interpolated Huntingdon.
page 87 note 1 We gave our reasons for excluding Canterbury, Rochester, and Winchester. If the author was a mere translator and not a collector at the same time, if in other words an Anglo-Saxon compilation once existed containing all these features, our attempt to grasp the man's individuality would apply, of course, to this shadowy predecessor.
page 87 note 2 A. 972–1016; 1040; 1061.
page 87 note 3 i. 16, 1. ii. 4. iii. 45, 2.
page 87 note 4 i. 22. i. 7. ii. 6. ii. 5.
page 87 note 5 i. 6. ii. 35.
page 87 note 6 i. H, I. 13.
page 87 note 7 i. 5, 2 a (the same alteration from Alfred 20 is in Leg. Henr. 23, 3. 45, 2). 4. 5. iii. 45. 63.
page 87 note 8 i. 18; 19, 1; 20 f.; ii. 10 1.; 29, 1; 38; 46, I; 49; 65; 67 f.; 76 1; 79; 81; 51; 54.
page 88 note 1 ii. 38.
page 88 note 2 i. 12 b. 13.
page 88 note 3 i. 6; iii. 45.
page 89 note 1 iii. 21 sq. 38. 61.
page 89 note 2 See above, 11; cf. ii. 5. 30; iii. 28.
page 89 note 3 Above, 9.
page 89 note 4 He puts ‘above’ instead of ‘beneath’ (ii. 217. 29, I), ‘kills’ instead of ‘bites,’ and leaves out be, iii. 41.
page 89 note 5 In ii. 59 g the author at first retained from Alfred 39 ceorlman; but he put dots under man and wrote in the margin boren. We find this in Cb, while Di has ceorlman vel ceorlboren, and H ceorlboren. Cf. commoditatem for aisiam, iii. S2. The position of words is also often altered; vocant preferred to dicunt, etc. These trifling changes occur so often, that they cannot be due to the scribes; they prove that the author retouched his work.
page 89 note 6 For thearf the MSS. read variously, necessitas, profectus, ulilitas, i. Pr. 4; cf. iii. 13.
page 89 note 7 See iii. 38, 1, delicatiores and i. minores above it in H and Di, while Cb has only del., and S only mitt. Cf. ii. 46; 75. H retains bocland in several places above alodium.
page 90 note 1 Other glosses belong to a Kentish copyist who puts suling over hida, i. 12; cf. above, 9, annot. In Battle and in Canterbury deeds swulinga (swelling) is explained byhida, terra aratri; cf. Taylor, , Domesday Studies, i. 161Google Scholar.
page 90 note 2 He arranges i. 12 before 11; II, 1 before 10; ii. 66, I before 66; 71, 3 before 71, 2, and ii. 43 behind i. 5.
page 91 note 1 ii. 45 refers to i. 5; cf. above, 4, ann.
page 91 note 2 ii. 75, I. iii. 41; vir post acceptus for he, ii. 73, I.
page 91 note 3 Domino for ‘receiver of fines,’ ii. 73, 4; latro for ‘forfeited,’ ii. 44 sq. The place is repeated instead of ‘ there,’ ii. 75, I.
page 91 note 4 ii. 30, 6. 72.
page 91 note 5 i. 5, 2. iii. 48. cf. in villis pleniter arent et seminent iox tilian, ii. 69, I.
page 91 note 6 ii.Ji. About the shilling of fourpence, see above, 10. The knowledge of ores, ii. 15, 1, may come from the Northumbrian priests or from Danish custom. Suffolk people reckoned after the ore still in 1253; Ellis, , Introd. to Domesday, i. 167Google Scholar.
page 92 note 1 ii. 12. 15.
page 92 note 2 Above, 7. In ii. 58, however, regulus may mean ‘prince of the blood.’
page 92 note 3 17, I.
page 92 note 4 ii. 82; cf. Quadrip. p. 48.
page 92 note 5 ii. 69, 1. Cf. on the royal prerogative below, 20.
page 92 note 6 i. 8. ii. 77. In Domesday alodium designates also other tenures; Ellis, , Introd. i. 5–4Google Scholar.
page 92 note 7 ii- 30 6. 71, 3! iii. 3.
page 92 note 8 The ‘ Instituta ’ call this violent self-help nam.
page 92 note 9 iii. I. 3.
page 93 note 1 ii. 15, 2. 28. 66.
page 93 note 2 ii. 20; i. n, I; ii.
page 93 note 3 3 ii. 17.
page 93 note 4 Cf. ‘ Cohsiliatio,’ Einl. 15.
page 93 note 5 ii. 25, 1. 30, 6. 31, I.
page 93 note 6 ‘Leis,’ 3, 4; ' Ed. Conf.' 15, 5.
page 93 note 7 ii. 15, 1.
page 93 note 8 ii. 591. iii. 5. 43. 60 sq.
page 93 note 9 Only once the word means legally free, ii.
page 93 note 10 P. 48.
page 94 note 1 ii. 71, 2 sq.
page 94 note iii. 55. 57. Such as the rising of the ceorl to thaneship, where already the Anglo-Saxon original uses the past tense, iii. 60.
page 94 note 3 See above, 7.
page 94 note 4 ii. 70 sq. 73, 4. 78.
page 94 note 5 As in Domesday, Quadripartitus, and William's Laws.
page 94 note 6 ii. 2, 1. 33.
page 94 note 7 iii. 1–4. 8. Ini demands ihe purgation oath or the ‘ wer ’ according to the value of the rioter, our author according to the value of the assailed paity.
page 94 note 8 ii. 19. iii. I; intentionally, as iii. 3 has duas libras.
page 94 note 9 i. 2, 4. ii. 16. 20. 30, 8. 48 sq. 52. 59 d. 60. 62. 66. 69, I. iii. 6 sqq. 44 sq. 56, 2.
page 95 note 1 3. 37 sq. 45 sq. 48. 60. 71, 2.
page 95 note 2 ii. 15. 61. 42. 12 sq. 26; iii. 49.
page 95 note 3 ii. 12. 15. 61; forisfactura belli, iii. 46.
page 95 note 4 ii. 15.
page 95 note 5 ii. 30, 5; decapilletur Quadrip.; piletur Consil.; decalvare elsewhere.
page 95 note 6 ii. 15.
page 95 note 7 The author adds for instance et ipse sit duodecimus, where the original mentioned the eleven compurgators, ii. 65.
page 95 note 8 This number is the author's addition, ii. 23. 24, 2.
page 95 note 9 Kolderup remarked that there must be a lapsus in vocatus vocet alium et tertius tertium, and proposes: secundus t. I prefer to read t. quartum, as ii. Cnut 24, 2, i. Wil. 45, and their Latin versions read ‘ the fourth time.’
page 95 note 10 So haligaom is rightly translated.
page 95 note 11 Ine 19.46; cf. Quadripartitus: iurarepro LX Aidis, i.e. pro hominibm VI.
page 96 note 1 i. 5, 2. ii. 8. 22, 1 sq. 30, 3. iii. 61.
page 96 note 2 MS. H over ii, 30, 3.
page 96 note 3 ii. 20. 22. 36 sq. 39.
page 96 note 4 See Glanville, 14, I.
page 96 note 5 i. 17. ii. 8. 22. 30, 3. 32. 35.
page 96 note 6 See above, ii.
page 96 note 7 i. 2, 4. S; ii. 41; hi. 45.
page 96 note 8 ii. 45.
page 96 note 9 i. 9 sq. 12 sq.
page 96 note 10 ii. 5.
page 96 note 11 i. 7, while Æhelred vi. 12 gives 6 manna sibfcec binnan tham 4. cneowe. Cf. Amira, , in Paul's, Grundriss German. Philol. ii, 2Google Scholar, 137.
page 96 note 12 Cnut demands in one MS. the man's wergeld, ii. 52.
page 96 note 13 As a violation of marriage he mentions iacendo sub coniuge, ii. 50.
page 97 note 1 i. 8. ii. 50. 54. 73.
page 97 note 2 Alod, iii. 46; in ferd he sees bellum, in ham, curia, as above, 17, ann.; quod Angli dicunt occurs very often.
page 97 note 3 Punderes, 59.
page 97 note 4 Bebodenes, 47.
page 97 note 5 Beo weorth (?)
page 97 note 6 See above, 15, ann.
page 98 note 1 Bocland forworht, flymena fyrmo, utlages [fyrmo], etc., ii. Cn. 12 sq. 15.
page 98 note 2 Cf. i. Æthelred, I, 14.
page 98 note 3 I.e. ‘ perfect’; cf Bosworth-Toller riht-handdseda.
page 98 note 4 I.e. cyninges handgrip; pax data manu regis; Domesday, Chester.
page 98 note 5 ii. Cnut, 10. 65.
page 98 note 6 Henr. 10, 1. 12. 35, 2.
page 98 note 7 This word is translated publicus latro, ii. Cnut, 26.
page 98 note 8 Schmid, p. 556.
page 98 note 9 Edw. Guihrum Pr. 2; viii. Æthelred, 8. 15. 36.
page 99 note 1 Cf. ealdormannes land Schmid, apud, p. 560Google Scholar; cf. Eyton, Dcmefday of Somerset, i. 78.
page 99 note 2 So Chester; Lincoln, reddebat regi XX L., comiti X.
page 99 note 3 Geoffrey or Mandeville, 287. 289; Edw. Conf. 27.
page 99 note 4 End of c. 55; 57 sqq.
page 99 note 5 III. Æthelred, 12; ii. Cnut, 71.
page 100 note 1 iii. Æthelred, 12; Grith, II sq.; Northleod, 3.
page 100 note 2 ii. Cnut, 84, 1.
page 100 note 3 This gloss stands in its correct place in H, but after aquae in Cb, which then repeats aquae. This nonsense is followed in the edited texts.
page 100 note 4 Ch. 7: Episcopus.
page 100 note 5 St. Edmund's, York, later on Durham, besides Canterbury mentioned in Æthelstan, 14.
page 100 note 6 Its existence is attested by late Anglo-Saxon rituals and Quadripartitus, p. 48, accepted by Brunner, , Deutsche Rechtsgesch. ii. 410Google Scholar.
page 101 note 1 Vgl. ii. Cnut, 61: gif hwa grfðbryce fulwyrce,… gif he samwyrce.
page 101 note 2 Cf. Henr. 20, 2: Episcopi in terris propriae potestatis suae sacam et socnam habent, tol et theam et infongentheof et super alterius homines, si in forisfaciendo retenti vel gravati fuerint, emendationem.
page 101 note 3 Cf. Kemble, , Saxons, ii. 393Google Scholar; Dove, , Jurisd. eccles. progres. 116Google Scholar.
page 101 note 4 Corrupted from setenes or settan ?
page 101 note 5 Cf. Stubbs, , Constil. Hist. i. 106Google Scholar.
page 101 note 6 III WL I and 8 come from the ‘ Instituta,’ i. Cn. Pr. and ii. Cn. 20, while iii. Wl. 5. 8 a. 9. 10 are only materially akin to ii. Cn. 24. 17. 3. 30, 5, and iii. Wl. 6 comes from William's ordinance on procedure.
page 101 note 7 Including those lost MSS., the existence of which must be assumed for the sake of classification. A copyist of the author's own lifetime adds abbatiac behind the churches privileged with royal mund; the word is in H T Di S, but not in Cb. The variations printed by Kolderup from B, and after Thorkelin's notes from D, do not at all belong to the ‘ Instituta,’ but to the Quadripartitus MSS. Br and Dm, partly however to R, though D is quoted; see Quadr. p. ix.
page 101 note 8 See above, 12.
page 102 note 1 The Very Rev. the Dean and Chapter of Rochester kindly allowed me to inspect it at Rochester, and in 1890 sent it for my use to the British Museum. I herewith beg to offer them my most respectful thanks.
page 102 note 2 Fol. 58–118; the preceding part, containing Anglo-Saxon laws, seems to be somewhat earlier. On fol. 119 the Rochester Chartulary begins.
page 102 note 3 His for ῖs, iii. 63; hundrad, fundsres, iii. 58 sq.
page 102 note 4 Nocere ordinalo instead of -turn, which answers to the Anglo-Saxon original; see above, 9, ann. 8.
page 102 note 5 ii. 30. 3.
page 102 note 6 i. 17, I, which the other MSS. place after 17, occurs after 19; etiam is left out in i. 15.
page 102 note 7 See above, 2.
page 102 note 8 After iii. 44 both add sex villanorum.
page 102 note 9 Cf. Stubbs, , Jloveden, ii. xxiijGoogle Scholar.
page 103 note 1 The end of this last page of the MS. is blank.
page 103 note 2 Quadr. p. 64, 145. T is not the only MS. where two different translations of Cnut occur; also Hk exhibits Consiliatio Cnuti after Quadripartitus.
page 103 note 3 See ecclesiarum, i. 22, and an insertion, i. 4.
page 103 note 4 Its Administrateur-général, M. Léopold Delisle, with his usual kindness, informed me about the MS. in a long letter, and sent the codex to the Berlin library in 1892. Cf. Consiliatio Cnuti, Einl. 20 sqq.
page 103 note 5 Copied, not without gross errors, by Roger de Hoveden, s. a. 1180.
page 103 note 6 In their second form.
page 103 note 7 In sura in Cb, where the other MSS. read correctly infixa, iii. 31 proves the same.
page 103 note 8 In i. 3, 2 Cb has XXX. sol. like Cnut (while H Di T give octoginta dinar.) and in ii. 60 the word hominem left out by H Di S; cf. i. 6, 2. 8, and see above, 12.
page 103 note 9 In i. 13 a whole sentence is in Cb alone, not drawn from Cnut.
page 104 note 1 This appears from Cb's text erroneously exhibiting detractions (in H this same mistake is still visible under a later correction), while the rubric correcily readsDe traditions, ii. 57. Secondly, the commencement of ii. 15 is written in red ink, as if it were a rubric.
page 104 note 2 iii. I; cf. ii. 19.
page 104 note 3 Breche, cherl, cherche, iii. 56, 42; i. 3, 2; sotiis, untie, i. 5, 2; iii. 10; idas for ‘hydas,’ iii. 61.
page 104 note 4 i porte instead ofun orhte, iii. 58; lihtgesrotter forlihtgescot, ter, i. 12.
page 104 note 5 We shall use this archaic orthography in the future text.
page 104 note 6 Decreto for secreto, i. 2, 4.
page 104 note 7 Sometimes in the margin, i. 8; ii. 74, 9–78.
page 104 note 8 Ælfgiua is in Anglo-Saxon characters; Geneal. Normann. S.
page 104 note 9 See above, 2.
page 104 note 10 E.g. id est for et, quod for quia, tantum for tamen, multae for inultae, parvulus for per vulnus.
page 105 note 1 The other parts of the volume are written in different hands, and deal with other subjects. After the ‘Instituta’ the rest of the page is left vacant.
page 105 note 2 ii. 15, 1. 33, 2. 59c 65.
page 105 note 3 It skips one line, ii. 30, 3.
page 105 note 4 See above, 12. 24.
page 105 note 5 In Henry's edition of 1145. William of Malmesbury is another chronicler of the twelfth century into whose history contemporary laws were interpolated; and Roger of Howden embodied such in his chronicle himself.
page 105 note 6 In those MSS. where the whole of the three pieces do not occur together, I assume that the copyist left out something rather than that he is more original than the fuller MSS.
page 105 note 7 Cp, my paper ‘Heinrich v Huntingdon,’ Forschungen Deutsch. Gesch, 18, 294. La[mbeth 179], written in the fourteenth century, has only Hie intimatur and Genealogia. It is said ‘to be a transcript, with abridgments, of Lb.’ Arnold, Huntingdon, p. xl-xliii, 188. I have not yet examined Arnold's MSS. 28 sqq., ‘ arranged as Lb.’ They are modern.
page 105 note 8 Arnold.
page 106 note 1 Ct omits Anglorum in the rubric; Jo reads it for hoc, iii. 43, 3, and Va perfectum for profectum, i. Prol.
page 106 note 2 Thorkelin's transcript of S preserved at Copenhagen was collated by Kolderup-Rostnvinge under the sigia H.
page 106 note 3 In their more original shape, as in Rl, and followed by the London Libertas civitatum,
page 106 note 4 In Cn. iii. 44 PI has chelfende for ‘ twelfhynde.’
page 106 note 5 iii. 22. 24 unguis; iii. 27 fuerit. The end of ii. 59 a is wanting.
page 106 note 6 H and S read plegium, Di sets wrongly inditium, and Cb omits the word, ii. 58. Again Jo, PI, and S insert, together with the longer MSS. and the source (Merce 3), a line wanting in Di iii. 43, 3.
page 107 note 1 Rl presents ‘Leges Ed. Conf.’ in their more original form, without the ‘Genealogia.’
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