We shall see that, before the custom fell into total disuse, the change which Haco vainly attempted, came to be generally adopted, in consequence, principally, of the example set by the church. Even before this was formally promulgated by the Popes, however, ecclesiastics occasionally showed that they were more careful as to what they swore, and at a comparatively early period they introduced the form of merely asserting their belief in the oath taken by their principal. Thus, in 1101, we find two bishops endeavoring to relieve a brother prelate from a charge of simony, and their compurgatorial oath ventures no further than “So help me God, I believe that Norgaud, Bishop of Autun, has sworn the truth.”[164] In the form of oath, however, as well as in so many other particulars, the Welsh had a more complicated system, peculiar to themselves. The ordinary _raith-man_ only was required to take an oath “that it appears most likely to him that what he swears to is true.” In many aggravated crimes, however, a certain proportion, generally one-half, had to be _nod-men_ who were bound to a more stringent form, as the law specifies that “the oath of a nod-man is, to be in accordance with what is sworn by the criminal.”[165] The difference, as we have seen, in the numbers required when a portion were _nod-men_ shows how much more difficult it was to find men willing to swear to an absolute denial, and how much more weight was attached to such a declaration than to the lax expression of opinion contained in the ordinary oath of the _raith-man_. Variations are likewise observable in the form of administering the oath. Among the Alamanni, for instance, the compurgators laid their hands upon the altar, and the principal placed his hand over the others, repeating the oath alone;[166] while among the Lombards, a law of the Emperor Lothair directs that each shall take the oath separately.[167] It was always, however, administered in a consecrated place, before delegates appointed by the judges trying the cause, sometimes on the altar and sometimes on relics. In the Welsh laws of the fifteenth century it is specified that all _raiths_ shall be administered in the parish church of the defendant, before the priest shall have disrobed or distributed the sacramental bread.[168] At an earlier period a formula of Marculfus specifies the Capella S. Martini, or cope of St. Martin,[169] one of the most venerated relics of the royal chapel, whence we may perhaps conclude that it was habitually used for that purpose in the business of the royal Court of Appeals.