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129 071 the Roman Coloni, 129 The rent in Sicily consisted universally in a certain portion of the produce, which however was sometimes delivered in kind, sometimes bought off with money. In the former case the coloni had to bear both the risk of the voyage, and the unavoidable damage on board ship, for which they had to give the sailors an average compensation. With regard to the latter case the pope enjoins that the sum taken is always to be the real marketprice at the time, it having hitherto been the practice in cheap years to oppress the coloni by arbitrarily fixing higher prices. The passage of the letter which lays down a general rule for the rate of the rent is peculiarly important, but very difficult. Gregory says, it had hitherto been the custom on many estates to extort the oppressive rent of three bushels and a half out of seventy from the coloni ^ and even to increase this rent by sundry by- charges. He orders that in future no more than two bushels out of seventy should be taken, and that nothing should be required beyond '^ And to the end that the coloni may "7* That is, a twentieth of the produce, or half a tenth. The rent in future was to amount only to a thirty fifth. How the number seventy came to be used, I am unable to explain. ■72 The passage, about the substance of which there can be no question, though it is far from easy to explain the words, stands in the Paris edition as follows : Cognovimus etiam^ in aliquihus massis Ecclesiae exactidnem injustissimam fieri^ ita ut a septuaginta terni semis, quod did nefas est^ conductores exigantur : et adhuc neque hoc sufficit^ sed insuper aliquid ex usu jam multorum exigi dicuntur. Qiiam rem omnino detes- tamur et prout vires rusticorum portant^ pensionem integrum ad septuagena bina persolvant. It is clear that the pope meant to say. We have heard that in many places the farmers exact three and a half out of seventy [from the coloni) : nay it is said that they are not even contented with this^ but still demand something more. In order however to understand the words in this way, they must be explained and amended as follows. The subject of the whole proposition is the ritstici ecclesiae, who are mentioned so repeatedly in the preceding part of the letter that there is nothing at all forced in supplying them here. Besides we must read a sepiuagenis terna semis^ and afterward per co7iduc- tores exigantur, Septuagenis is found in some of the manuscripts, and supported by the analogy o^ septuagena just after. Terna has no manuscript authority ; but the numerals of the older manuscripts might easily be converted by a mistaken interpre- tation both into terni and terms, Ternis especially may have arisen from an erroneous notion that it was to be taken along with septuagenis : and then the s at the beginning of the next word may have led to the change of ternis into terni, Terna is to be taken as the accusative, and the whole clause is to be filled up and constructed as follows — ita ut {rustici) per conductores exigantur terna semis a septuagenis : which construc- tion is confirmed by the exactly parallel one immediately after : insuper aliquid (rus- tici) exigi dicuntur. On this construction of exigantur see Cramer pr. ad Gellium excursuum trias. Kil. 1827- pp. 29. sq. Vol. II. No. 4. R