It would be endless to specify all the variations in the numbers required by the different codes in all imaginable cases of quarrel between every class of society. Numerous elements entered into these regulations; the nature of the crime or claim, the station of the parties, the rank of the compurgators, and the mode by which they were selected. Thus, in the simplest and most ancient form, the Salic law merely specifies twenty-five compurgators to be equally chosen by both parties.[94] Some formulas of Marculfus specify three freeholders and twelve friends of the accused.[95] A Merovingian edict of 593 directs the employment of three peers of the defendant, with three others chosen for the purpose, probably by the court.[96] Alternative numbers, however, soon make their appearance, depending upon the manner in which the men were chosen. Thus among the Alamanni, on a trial for murder, the accused was obliged to secure the support of twenty designated men, or, if he brought such as he had selected himself, the number was increased to eighty.[97] So, in a capitulary of 803, Charlemagne prescribes seven chosen conjurators, or twelve if taken at random,[98] a rule which is virtually the same as that laid down by the Emperor Henry III. in the middle of the eleventh century.[99] In 922 the council of Coblentz directs that accusations of sacrilege could be rebutted with twenty-four chosen men, or seventy-two freemen not thus selected.[100] In Bigorre the law thus discriminated against the _cagots_—an infamous wandering race of uncertain origin—for cases in which the oaths of seven conjurators ordinarily sufficed required thirty _cagots_, when the latter were called upon to act.[101] In an English record of the fifteenth century we find a defendant called upon to prove his innocence with six of his neighbors or twelve strangers.[102] Strangely enough, the church at one time adopted the principle that the higher the rank of the accused the more he must present of his peers as compurgators. Thus the bishop required eleven bishops, the priest five priests, and the deacon two deacons; but Cardinal Henry of Susa who enunciates this says it is an error, and that the number is at the discretion of the judge.[103] The rule, moreover, that the compurgators must be of the same rank and class as the accused was waived when they were presumably inimical to him or the proper number could not be had, and thus a cleric might be cleared by the oaths of laymen.[104]