Salic law
The Salic law, also called the was a Frankish civil law code compiled around 500 AD by Clovis, the first Frankish king. The name may refer to the Salii, or "Salian Franks", but this is debated. The written text is in Late Latin, and contains some of the earliest known instances of Old Dutch. It remained the basis of Frankish law throughout the early medieval period, and influenced future European legal systems. The best-known tenet of the old law is the principle of exclusion of women from inheritance of thrones, fiefs, and other property. The Salic laws were arbitrated by a committee appointed by the Frankish king. Dozens of manuscripts dating from the 6th to 8th centuries and three emendations as late as the 9th century have survived.
Salic law provided written codification of both civil law, such as the statutes governing inheritance, and criminal law, such as the punishment for murder. Although it was originally intended as the law of the Franks, it has had a formative influence on the tradition of statute law that extended to modern history in much of Europe, especially in the German states and Austria-Hungary in Central Europe, the Low Countries in Western Europe, Balkan kingdoms in Southeastern Europe, and parts of Italy and Spain in Southern Europe. Its use of agnatic succession governed the succession of kings in kingdoms such as France and Italy.
History of the law
The original edition of the code was commissioned by the first king of all the Franks, Clovis I, and published sometime between 507 and 511. He appointed four commissioners to research customary law that, until the publication of the Salic law, had been recorded only in the minds of designated elders, who would meet in council when their knowledge was required. Transmission was entirely oral. Salic law, therefore, reflects ancient usages and practices. To govern more effectively, having a written code was desirable for monarchs and their administrations.For the next 300 years, the code was copied by hand, and was amended as required to add newly enacted laws, revise laws that had been amended, and delete laws that had been repealed. In contrast with printing, hand copying is an individual act by an individual copyist with ideas and a style of his own. Each of the several dozen surviving manuscripts features a unique set of errors, corrections, content, and organization. The laws are called "titles", as each one has its own name, generally preceded by de, "of", "concerning". Different sections of titles acquired individual names, which revealed something about their provenances. Some of these dozens of names have been adopted for specific reference, often given the same designation as the overall work, lex.
Merovingian phase
The recension of Hendrik Kern organizes all of the manuscripts into five families according to similarity and relative chronological sequence, judged by content and dateable material in the text. Family I is the oldest, containing four manuscripts dated to the eighth and ninth centuries, but containing 65 titles believed to be copies of originals published in the sixth century. In addition, they feature the Malbergse Glossen, "Malberg Glosses", marginal glosses stating the native court word for some Latin words. These are named from native malbergo, "language of the court". Kern's Family II, represented by two manuscripts, is the same as Family I, except that it contains "interpolations or numerous additions, which point to a later period".Carolingian phase
Family III is split into two divisions. The first, comprising three manuscripts, dated to the eighth–ninth centuries, presents an expanded text of 99 or 100 titles. The Malberg Glosses are retained. The second division, with four manuscripts, not only drops the glosses, but also "bears traces of attempts to make the language more concise". A statement gives the provenance: "in the 13th year of the reign of our most glorious king of the Franks, Pipin". Some of the internal documents were composed after the reign of Pepin the Short, but it is considered to be an emendation initiated by Pepin, so is termed the Pipina Recensio.Family IV also has two divisions – the first comprised 33 manuscripts; the second, one manuscript. They are characterized by the internal assignment of Latin names to various sections of different provenances. Two of the sections are dated to 768 and 778, but the emendation is believed to be dated to 798, late in the reign of Charlemagne. This edition calls itself the Lex Salica Emendata, or the Lex Reformata, or the Lex Emendata, and is clearly the result of a law code reform by Charlemagne.
By that time, Charlemagne's Holy Roman Empire comprised most of Western Europe. He added laws of choice taken from the earlier law codes of Germanic peoples not originally part of Francia. These are numbered into the laws that were there, but they have their own, quasisectional title. All the Franks of Francia were subject to the same law code, which retained the overall title of Lex Salica. These integrated sections borrowed from other Germanic codes are the Lex Ribuariorum, later Lex Ribuaria, laws adopted from the Ripuarian Franks, who, before Clovis, had been independent. The Lex Alamannorum took laws from the Alamanni, then subject to the Franks. Under the Franks, they were governed by Frankish law, not their own. The inclusion of some of their law as part of the Salic law must have served as a palliative. Charlemagne goes back even earlier to the Lex Suauorum, the ancient code of the Suebi preceding the Alemanni.
Malberg glosses
The Salic law code contains the Malberg glosses, which, despite the name, are not technically glosses in the traditional sense, but rather Germanic terms interspersed through the Latin legal docoment. These Germanic words and several short sentences are, though heavily corrupted by subsequent copyists unfamiliar with the original language, have been used to reconstruct the earliest stage of the Dutch language, Old Dutch, containing what is likely the earliest surviving full sentence in the language:This sentence is also given as the following:
Some tenets of the law
These laws and their interpretations give an insight into Frankish society. The criminal laws established damages to be paid and fines levied in recompense for injuries to persons and damage to goods, theft, and unprovoked insults. One-third of the fine paid court costs. Judicial interpretation was by a jury of peers.The civil law establishes that an individual person is legally unprotected if he or she does not belong to a family. The rights of family members were defined; for example, the equal division of land among all living male heirs, in contrast to primogeniture.
Agnatic succession
One tenet of the civil law is agnatic succession, explicitly excluding females from the inheritance of a throne or fief. Indeed, "Salic law" has often been used simply as a synonym for agnatic succession, but the importance of Salic law extends beyond the rules of inheritance, as it is a direct ancestor of the systems of law in use in many parts of continental Europe today.Salic law regulates succession according to sex. "Agnatic succession" means succession to the throne or fief going to an agnate of the predecessor – for example, a brother, a son, or nearest male relative through the male line, including collateral agnate branches, for example very distant cousins. Chief forms are agnatic seniority and agnatic primogeniture. The latter, which has been the most usual, means succession going to the eldest son of the monarch; if the monarch had no sons, the throne would pass to the nearest male relative in the male line.
Female inheritance
Concerning the inheritance of land, Salic law said:or, another transcript:
The law merely prohibited women from inheriting ancestral "Salic land"; this prohibition did not apply to other property ; and under Chilperic I sometime around the year 570, the law was actually amended to permit inheritance of land by a daughter if a man had no surviving sons.
The wording of the law, as well as common usage in those days and centuries afterwards, seems to support an interpretation that inheritance is divided between brothers, and if it is intended to govern succession, it can be interpreted to mandate agnatic seniority, not direct primogeniture. In its use by continental hereditary monarchies since the 15th century, aiming at agnatic succession, the Salic law is regarded as excluding all females from the succession, and prohibiting the transfer of succession rights through any woman. At least two systems of hereditary succession are direct and full applications of the Salic Law: agnatic seniority and agnatic primogeniture.
The Semi-Salic version of succession order stipulates that firstly all-male descendance is applied, including all collateral male lines, but if all such lines are extinct, then the closest female agnate of the last male holder of the property inherits, and after her, her own male heirs according to the Salic order. In other words, the female closest to the last incumbent is "regarded as a male" for the purposes of inheritance and succession. This has the effect of following the closest extant blood line and not involving any more distant relatives. The closest female relative might be a child of a relatively junior branch of the whole dynasty, but still inherits due to her position in the male line, due to the longevity of her own branch; any existing senior female lines come behind that of the closest female.
From the Middle Ages, another system of succession, known as cognatic male primogeniture, actually fulfills apparent stipulations of the original Salic law; succession is allowed also through female lines, but excludes the females themselves in favour of their sons. For example, a grandfather, without sons, is succeeded by a son of his daughter, when the daughter in question is still alive. Or an uncle, with no children of his own, is succeeded by a son of his sister, when the sister in question is still alive. This fulfils the Salic condition of "no land comes to a woman, but the land comes to the male sex". This can be called a "quasi-Salic" system of succession and it should be classified as primogenitural, cognatic, and male-preferred.