Instances also occur in which the character of the defendant regulated the number required. Among the Welsh, the laws of Hoel Dda provide that a wife accused of infidelity could disprove a first charge with seven women; if her conduct provoked a second investigation, she had to procure fourteen; while, on a third trial, fifty female conjurators were requisite for her escape.[111] Another application of the same principle is found in the provision that when a man confessed a portion of the crime imputed to him and denied the remainder, an augmented _raith_ was required to support his denial, because it is more difficult to believe a man who has admitted his participation in a criminal act. Thus when only fifty men were requisite to rebut a charge of homicide, and the accused admitted one of the accessories to homicide, his denial of the main charge had to be substantiated by one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred men, according to the nature of the case. On the other hand, where no criminal act was concerned, confession of a portion diminished the _raith_ for the remainder. Thus in a claim for suretyship, six compurgators were necessary to the defendant; but if he admitted part of the suretyship, his unsupported oath was sufficient to rebut the remainder, as the admission of a portion rendered him worthy of belief.[112] In the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, the _frangens jusjurandum_, as it was called, also grew to be an exceedingly complex system in the rules by which the number and quality of the conjurators were regulated according to the nature of the crime and the rank of the accused. In cases of peculiar atrocity, such as violation of the sanctity of the grave, only thanes were esteemed competent to appear.[113] In fact, among the Anglo-Saxons, the value of a man’s oath was rated according to his rank, that of a thane, for instance, being equal to those of seven villeins.[114] The same peculiarity is observable among the Frisians, whose laws required that compurgators should be of the same class as their principal, and the lower his position in the State, the larger was the number requisite.[115]