In Germany, as a general rule, either party had a right to demand the judicial combat,[398] subject, however, in practice, to several important limitations. Thus, difference of rank between the parties afforded the superior a right to decline a challenge, as we shall see more fully hereafter.[399] Relationship between the contestants was also an impediment, of which either might avail himself,[400] and even the fact that the defendant was not a native of the territory in which the action was brought gave him the privilege of refusing the appeal.[401] Still, we find the principle laid down even in the fourteenth century that cases of homicide could not be determined in any other manner.[402] There were circumstances, indeed, in which the complainant, if he could bring the evidence of seven witnesses in his favor, could decline the duel; but if he choose to prove the charge by the combat, no examination or testimony was admitted. In the same way, if a man was slain while committing theft or robbery, and was prosecuted for the crime, the accuser was not bound to offer the duel if he could produce the evidence of seven witnesses; but if a relative of the dead man offered to vindicate him by combat, this annulled all the evidence, and conviction could not be had without the battle ordeal.[403] A curious provision in the Saxon burgher law allowed a man who had been assaulted to challenge to the duel as many men as he had wounds—but the wounds were required to be of a certain degree of severity—_wunden kampffbaren_.[404] So the contemporary law of Suabia provides that in accusations of personal violence, the duel was not to be allowed, unless the injury inflicted on the complainant had been sufficiently serious to cause permanent maiming,[405] thus showing how thoroughly different in spirit was the judicial combat from the modern code of honor which has been affiliated upon it. Yet a general rule is found expressed to the effect that it was necessary only in cases where no other evidence was obtainable, when the result could be safely left to the judgment of Omniscience.[406] In the Latin kingdoms of the East, and among the Armenians, who, curiously enough, adopted the customs of their fellow Christians from the West, it would seem that in both the noble and the roturier courts, in civil as well as in criminal cases, the plaintiff or prosecutor was not obliged personally to fight, but that if one of his witnesses offered battle, the defendant or accused was not permitted to decline the challenge under pain of losing his suit or being condemned. On the other hand, unless the complainant or accuser had a witness who was willing to offer battle, the oath of denial of the other party was sufficient, and in criminal cases the accuser was subjected to the _talio_.[407]