it recognises the separate customs of the former Viking Kingdom of York, which was to have "such good laws as they best decide on". Wapentakes, the name in the northern Danelaw for the administrative divisions known to the Anglo-Saxons as hundreds, are first mentioned in this law code. One exception to the concession that the Danelaw was to have its own customs was a provision to make the sale of stolen goods more difficult. At least twelve sworn witnesses were to be appointed in each burh, hundred and wapentake, and all transactions had to be witnessed by two or three of these witnesses. Shires, hundreds and wapentakes began to play an important part in the king's control over the population around this time. IV Edgar refers "to all the nation, whether Englishmen, Danes or Britons, in every province of my dominion", recognising that Edgar's subjects were made up of three distinct political communities. He ordered that many copies of the code be sent to ealdormen Ælfhere and Æthelwine, so that they can be widely distributed and made known to rich and poor. Lantfred of Winchester, writing at about the time that Edgar died, stated: At the command of the glorious King Edgar, a law...was promulgated throughout England, to serve as a deterrent against all sorts of crime...that if any thief or robber were found anywhere in the patria, he would be tortured at length by having his eyes put out, his hands cut off, his ears torn off, his nostrils carved open and his feet removed; and finally, with the skin and hair of his head shaved off, he would be abandoned in the open fields dead in respect of nearly all his limbs, to be devoured by wild beasts and birds and hounds of the night. Edgar's known laws do not specify mutilation, although IV Edgar does refer a list of punishments which do not survive. A code of Cnut specifies similar punishments, and its author, Archbishop Wulfstan of York, stated that Cnut's legislation was based on the laws of Edgar. Wormald describes the punishments as "ghastly", and Keynes observes that it is no wonder that Edgar was hailed as "the strongest of all kings", but if we are disposed to admire the peace he brought then we should bear in mind the measures he took to enforce it. Cnut held up Edgar's legislation as the precedent to be