neglected this duty, the privilege enured to the plaintiff.[123] More facile for the defence was a process prescribed in a Spanish charter of 1135, where, in cases of homicide, it sufficed for the accused to obtain five conjurators out of twelve selected by the magistrates.[124] A method combining selection and chance is described in the custumal of Ipswich in the twelfth century, to decide questions of debt between the townsfolk. The party on whom proof was incumbent brought in ten men; these were divided into two bands of five each, and a knife was thrown up between them; the band towards which the point of the knife fell was taken, one of the five was set aside, and the remaining four served as conjurators.[125] The Northern nations were evidently less disposed to favor the accused than the Southern. In Sweden and Denmark, another regulation provides that although the defendant had a right to demand this mode of purgation, yet the plaintiff had the selection of the twelve men who served as conjurators; three of these the accused could challenge for enmity, but their places were supplied by the plaintiff.[126] The evanescent code compiled for Iceland by Haco Haconsen and his son Magnus, towards the close of the thirteenth century, is more equitable in its provisions. Though it leaves the nomination of the conjurators to the defendant, the choice is subject to limitations which placed it virtually in the power of the court. They were required to be men of the vicinage, of good repute, peers of the accused, and in no way connected with him by blood or other ties.[127] The more lasting code promulgated at the same time by Magnus for his Norwegian dominions, a code which became the common law of Norway for 500 years, provides, for cases in which eleven conjurators are required, that seven of them shall be selected of intelligent men of full age, and in no way related to the accused, yet residents of the vicinage, and acquainted with the facts; the accused can then add four more of good character, himself making the twelfth.[128] We see here, as in the English jurisprudence, how nearly the conjuratorial process approaches to the jury-trial, and how completely it has departed from its origin in the solidarity of the family.