Such care in the selection of those on whom duties so responsible devolved did not prevail among the more Southern races at an earlier age. Among the Lombards slaves and women in tutelage were often employed.[129] The Burgundians required that the wife and children, or, in their absence, the father and mother of the accused should assist in making up the number of twelve,[130] the object being evidently to increase the responsibility of the family for the action of its head. The abuses of this custom, however, caused its prohibition under Charlemagne for the reason that it led to the swearing of children of tender and irresponsible age.[131] That legislator, however, contented himself with forbidding those who had once been convicted of perjury from again appearing either as witnesses or conjurators;[132] and the little care that was deemed necessary in their selection under the Carlovingian jurisprudence is shown by a law of Louis le Débonnaire ordering that landless freemen should be allowed to serve as conjurators, though ineligible as witnesses.[133] A truer conception of the course of justice is manifested, some centuries later, by the Béarnese legislation, which required that the _seguidors_ or conjurators, as well as the _testimonis_ or witnesses should be men able to pay the amount at stake, together with the fine incurred by the losing party,[134] or that they should be fair and loyal men, not swayed by enmity.[135] In ecclesiastical trials it would seem that the selection of compurgators rested with the bishop. In a case occurring in the thirteenth century, of a priest accused of homicide who failed in his compurgation, he appealed to the Holy See on the ground that his accusers were perjurers and that the bishop had chosen the compurgators to suit himself.[136] As a matter of course, the result of the trial depended, as it does with the modern jury, on the fairness with which the choice was made, and in the universal corruption of the middle ages there is no reason to suppose that favoritism or bribery was not a controlling influence in a majority of cases. CHAPTER V. CONDITIONS OF COMPURGATION.