Variations likewise occur arising from the nature of the case and the character of the plaintiff. Thus in the Scottish law of the twelfth century, in a criminal charge, a man could defend himself against his lord with eleven men of good reputation, but if the king were the accuser, twenty-four were requisite, who were all to be his peers, while in a civil case twelve were sufficient.[105] So in the burgher laws of David I., ordinary cases between citizens were settled with ten conjurators, but eleven were necessary if the king were a party, or if the matter involved the life, limb, or lands of one of the contestants; and in cases occurring between a citizen and a countryman, each party had to provide conjurators of his own class.[106] In the complicated rules for compurgation which form the basis of the Welsh jurisprudence, there are innumerable details of this nature. We have seen that for some crimes many hundred _raith-men_ were required, while similar numbers were enjoined in some civil suits respecting real property.[107] From this the number diminishes in proportion to the gravity of the case, as is well illustrated by the provisions for denying the infliction of a bruise. If the mark remained until the ninth day, the accused could deny it with “two persons of the same privilege as himself;” if it remained until the eighteenth day, the oaths of three conjurators were necessary; if till the twenty-seventh day, four _raith-men_ were required.[108] The character of the _raith-men_ also affected the number demanded. Thus, in a collection of Welsh laws of the fifteenth century there is an explanation of the apparent anomaly that privity to theft or homicide required for its defence a vastly greater number of compurgators than the commission of the crime itself. The large bodies prescribed for the former consisted simply of any men that could be had—of course within the recognized grades of kindred—while, for the latter, rules of varying complexity were laid down. Thus, of the twenty-four required for theft, in some texts it is prescribed that two-thirds are to be of the nearest paternal kin, and one-third of the nearest maternal; or, again, one-half _nod-men_.[109] So, in accusations of homicide, the same proportions of paternal and maternal kindred were required, all were to be proprietors in the country of the _raith_, and three, moreover, were to be men under vows of abstinence from linen, horses, and women, besides a proper proportion of _nod-men_.[110]