Salic law

Salic law was the legal code of the Salian Franks, Germanic peoples that conquered the Western European region of Gaul after the fall of the Roman Empire. Known as Lex Salica in Latin, the law was codified by Frankish King Clovis I early in the sixth century. As is typical of early Germanic legal traditions, Salic law mainly deals with establishing a system of monetary punishments that vary according to the crime. It also contained a provision concerning the succession of property, decreeing that women could not inherit land. This provision, along with much of Salic law, was abandoned over the centuries as new legal codes were implemented. In the fourteenth century, the succession provision was used as an excuse to exclude women from ascending to the French throne. By the sixteenth century, the provision, now referred to as Salic law, became established as legal custom in France, and it was adopted by monarchies in other European nations.

Background

By the fifth century, the once-powerful Roman Empire was in the process of losing control over its western territories. Armies of so-called barbarians were harassing Roman defenses, capturing territory, and even invading the capital of Rome. A group of Germanic peoples known as the Franks took advantage of the chaos and decline in Roman power to seize control of Gaul—a region corresponding to modern-day France, Belgium, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. The most powerful of the Frankish peoples were the Ripuarians and the Salians.

In 486, the King of the Salian Franks, Chlodovech—better known as Clovis I—defeated the last Roman governor in Gaul. He also conquered the area's other Germanic tribal groups—the Alemanni, Burgundians, and Visigoths—to consolidate the region under Frankish rule. Clovis was the first king in the Merovingian dynasty, and he is considered the historic founder of the nation of France. He converted to Christianity in 496 and died around 511, dividing his kingdom up among his four sons.

Overview

With a kingdom consisting of former Roman subjects and several groups of Germanic peoples, Clovis sought to unify the people under a common legal system. Sometime between 507 and 511, he compiled the laws of the Salian Franks into a written code called the Lex Salica. Frankish law was based on Germanic legal customs the Romans had referred to as leges barbarorum, or "the law of the barbarians." These customs originated from a well-defined class system that permeated the Germanic societies, dividing the people into slaves, freemen, and nobility. They primarily relied on a stratified system of restitution known as wergeld. Most crimes required payment of a specific amount that varied by the severity of the act and the societal class upon which the act was committed.

Under Salic law, for example, if a Roman assaulted and robbed a free Frank citizen, the compensation would be set at 63 shillings; however, if a Frank committed the same crime against a Roman, the price was only 35 shillings. The murder of a freeman resulted in a price of 200 shillings, while the murder of a noble would cost 600 shillings. More expensive punishments were set for those who killed young boys, pregnant women, or women of childbearing age. Enslaved people who committed a crime could be sentenced to physical punishment or mutilation. In some cases, the accused could be forced to undergo trial by boiling water, which involved the accused retrieving a stone from a heated cauldron of water. If the accused's scalded hand healed properly, they were considered innocent.

While most Salic law concerned setting amounts of wergeld, some statutes involved migration between villages and the inheritance of property. One edict—title fifty-nine, clause six—stated that "of Salic land no portion of the inheritance shall come to a woman: but the whole inheritance of the land shall come to the male sex." In the late sixth century, the clause was amended to allow daughters to inherit if there were no living male heirs. Salic law was used as one of the templates for other legal systems in France and Europe through the ninth century, but it was eventually absorbed into local legal customs and nearly forgotten.

As the centuries passed, France and its monarchy grew powerful in the political landscape of Europe. Since the late tenth century, the nation's royal leadership had been passed down in relatively stable fashion, as each king had a son or brother to inherit the throne. That changed in 1328 when King Charles IV died, leaving behind only two daughters. The closest male relative of Charles was his nephew, Edward III, who was also the king of England. Not wanting France to be ruled by an English king, the French parliament decreed Edward ineligible for the crown since his succession would have passed through a female lineage—Charles's sister, Isabella. They instead named Philip VI—a cousin of Charles on his father's side—to be king. While legal custom was cited as the reason for the decision, Salic law was not specifically invoked at the time.

Edward III and future English kings challenged the French decision, contending that they were the rightful heirs to the French throne. In a 1410 argument against the English claims, French scholar Jean de Montreuil mentioned the succession provision of Salic law as a legal precedent to uphold the French position. Salic law was used to justify the denial of the French throne to female heirs, but it was not applied to the inheritance of private property. Since the original law stated that a woman could not inherit "Salic land," legal scholars interpreted this as referring to the French crown.

In the late sixteenth century, the Spanish made an attempt at the French throne through the marriage of Elisabeth of Valois, daughter of French King Henry II, and Spain's King Philip II. The French parliament invoked Salic law to deny the claim. By this time, Salic law had become entrenched as a fundamental legal custom of France, and it referred only to the succession of kings. The precedent was later used to exclude women from the throne in Spain, Austria, Italy, and several other European kingdoms. Napoleon officially made it the law of French succession in the early nineteenth century, and it was invoked there until 1883. The Salic law of succession has survived as custom in some places into the twenty-first century, though most of the world's remaining monarchies have since repealed it.

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