Salic Law

Salic Law, code of laws written in Latin and first compiled early in the 6th century by the Salians, a Frankish people that conquered Gaul in the 5th century. It comprises principally the fines to be paid for various injuries and crimes. Among its civil statutes, however, was one prohibiting daughters from inheriting land. It is this aspect to which the term Salic Law is most often applied, primarily because it mistakenly came to be employed as an argument against the succession of women, or of the descendants of kings' daughters, to European thrones. This Frankish land law was extended to the throne to prevent the Crown from passing out of the country through the marriage of a woman to a foreigner. The Salic Law in this respect was important in French history. It first was used in France early in the 14th century by King Philip V. The law later formed the legal basis for the denial of the French Crown to Edward III, king of England, whose mother was a daughter of the French king Philip IV; this dispute was the basis of the Hundred Years' War.