Barbarian Laws, which were, as regards the oldest of them, apparently compiled before the tribes accepted the Christian religion, at which time these laws assumed their Latin versions.
These codes of customary laws are rich storehouses of facts, illustrating the social condition of the Teutonic tribes on the continent of Europe and of those which settled in Britain.
They picture peoples who had passed out of savagery into barbarism, and with descent in the male line strongly marked, although that in the female line was still recognised in certain customs, such as the allocation of the Wergeld by the Salic law, one half going to the sons of the man who was killed, and the other divided between the paternal and maternal kindreds. There is no indication as to the proportion which each received, but some light is thrown upon the matter by the Anglo-Saxon laws. The first instalment of the Wer, namely, the Halsfang, went to the children, the brothers, and the paternal uncles; the remainder was divided between the paternal and the maternal maegs, two-thirds to the former and one -third to the latter. This evidence is the more valuable because the Anglo-Saxons had not been in contact with the romanised provincials, as the Salian Franks, the Burgundians, Visigoths, and others had been, and thus carried to Britain their old tribal customs, which were there reduced to writing. Next in value to the Anglo-Saxon laws are those of the Salian Franks, and it is one enactment in these laws that I have taken for consideration.
There are five recensions of the Salic law extant, of which I have been able to consult two.[1] The passage to which I desire to invite attention is the law entitled De Reippus. This term is explained by the commentators as being the price paid on the remarriage of a widow.
The two versions of this law agree as to the procedure to be followed by a man who desired to marry a widow, but
- ↑ "Pactus Legis Salicae Antiquior," in Canciani, Barbarorum Leges Antiquae, vol. ii., and the "Lex Salica Reformata" in the same volume. The "Pactus Legis Salicae" is the same version as the "Liber Legis Salicae " of Bignon's edition, and also the earlier one of Lindenbrog.
