Salic, Or Salique - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition salic-or-salique

Definition :

Salic, or Salique [lex salica, Lat.], an ancient and fundamental law of the kingdom of France, usually supposed to have been made by Pharamond, or at least by Clovis, in virtue of which males only are to reign.

It is a popular error to suppose that the Salic law was established purely on account of the succession of the Crown, since it extended to private persons as much as to the royal family.

The Salic law had not in view a preference of one sex to the other, much less had it a regard to the perpetuity of a family, a name, or the succession of land. It was purely a law of economy which gave the house, and the land dependent on the house, to the males who should dwell in it, and to whom it consequently was of more service.

In proof of this, the title of allodial lands of the Salic law may be thus stated:-

(1) If a man die without issue, his father or mother shall succeed him.

(2) If he have neither father nor mother, his brother or sister.

(3) If he have neither brother nor sister, the sister of his mother.

(4) If his mother have no sister, the sister of his father.

(5) If his father have no sister, the nearest relation by the male.

(6) No part of the Salic land shall pass to the females, but it shall belong to the males; the male children shall succeed their father, Encyc. Londin.; preferring males but not excluding females in default of male successors; see Hallam's Mid. Ages, note 3 to c. 2, p. 278.