Salic Law

(Latin Lex Salica), the written code of common law of the Salian Franks, one of the earliest barbarian law codes. At the behest of King Clovis, the Salic Law was written in the early sixth century in Vulgar Latin, with the inclusion of Frankish words and expressions. It was expanded and reworked by Clovis’ successors.

The Salic Law is divided into chapters and contains a list of crimes and the corresponding penalties, chiefly in the form of fines. The code reflects various stages in the development of archaic legal procedure; it was not noticeably influenced by Roman legal practice, and it preserved the norms of Germanic common law virtually unchanged. It reflects the evolution of Frankish society from the first communal stage to the beginnings of the feudal order.

The Salic Law shows traces of the tribal order among the Franks (chapters concerning inheritance by kinsmen, the payment by kinsmen of wergild, and conjurators representing the clan). It protected individual and family ownership of property, which had already become established among the Franks (penalties for the theft of livestock, slaves, grain, and fodder), and documented the appearance of individual and family ownership of land (authorization of the inheritance of arable land by male descendants). In the chapter “On Migrants,” the code gives a clear picture of the village commune, inhabited by neighbors possessing equal rights. At the same time, there are indications of differentiation in Frankish society and of the existence not only of freemen but also of semifree individuals and slaves, as well as of an aristocracy—individuals of the king’s entourage. The differences between the social and legal status of these categories of the population are reflected in the different wergilds set by the Salic Law. The code contains indications that a process of differentiation on the basis of wealth had begun among freemen and that some members of the stratum had become poor. Later additions and reworkings make it possible to trace the changes that occurred within Frankish society over several centuries, such as the transformation of the land into absolute alodium and the evolution from a commune system to that of a neighborhood community—the mark.