Salic law (/ˈsælɨk/ or /ˈseɪlɨk/; Latin: Lex Salica), or Salian Law, was the major body of Frankish law governing all the Franks of Frankia under the rule of its kings during the Old Frankish Period, approximately equal to the early Middle Ages. The laws were maintained in written form in the Latin language by a committee empowered by the monarch. Dozens of manuscripts dated from the 8th century of a putative original recension in the 6th century 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. It has had a formative influence on the tradition of statute law that has extended to modern times in Central Europe, especially in the German states, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, parts of Italy, Austria and Hungary, Romania, and the Balkans.
Read more about Salic Law: History of The Law, The Language Question, Some Tenets of The Law, Literary References
Famous quotes containing the word law:
“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)