Talk:Salic law

Translation

"male sons": I know it's not correct in English, but the distinctions I meant was: "sons and not daughters". I hope "sons" does not include them both, so to keep clear that it is the "male descendance" (but no one else apart from sons - if there are any). G

Yes, figli means 'children' (any combination of sons and daughters). Sons are necessarily male.
S.

Origins

Gianfranco -- I've always thought that Salic Law is traditionally supposed to come from the Laws of the Salian (as opposed to Ripuarian) Franks -- not from the Salian dynasty, which is not normally associated with France -- am I mistaken? JHK

Oops, it's a mistake of mine.

Well, half "mine": my "source" was an italian old official booklet from Savoy's "Real Casa", in which the House was described as following the Salic law with reference to the Salian dynasty tout-court - perhaps confused by assonance, as I was.

Effectively the lex salica was Frankish, even if (if I'm not mistaking again) it was used for succession in monarchy only centuries after, extensively - as the law itself was mainly a sort of civil and penal code and made no mention of royal succession (but a kingdom was a land property, at last, and as such regarded by that code).

The rule for successions was in fact derived by analogy to what prescribed for the inheritance of the terra salica (land in salic territory), essentially excluding daughters.

About France, it seems to me that the original law was a sort of mixture of German and Latin. --Gianfranco

can the Salic Law ever be abolished?

I understood that a few monarchies had already done so in order to enter the European Union owing to a provision forbidding EU countries from sex discrimination in choosing the head of state. Also, it seems to me that Spain had the Salic law at one point and dropped it as a result of a protracted and unpleasant war, but my memory is hazy (on both points). - Montréalais

I haven't been able to find any reference to say that the EU interferes in the way a country chooses its head of state, or that any have abandoned male primogeniture in connection with accession to the EU. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 04:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I found this article misleading, too. However, it adds a lot of detail about the Lex Salica that I was unaware of -- I assumed that since it dated to the early Frankish kingdom, that it was now entirely obsolete. I did some googling, & this article seems to provide a lot more of the background. Now if someone can rerwrite that in order to avoid copyright infringements. -- llywrch 04:08 Dec 6, 2002 (UTC)

That's helpful, but between that document and this article, there are three explanations of the circumstances under which Salic Law governed the inheritence of land (land not held in benefice, land of the royal fisc, land in an unspecified region of what is now the Netherlands and land which was inherited as described in this article). Is there an explanation somewhere of when the Franks would and would not have divided up their legacy in this way? I don't know the subject, so I find the article confusing rather than misleading. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 04:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Altering this: "Finally, Queen Elizabeth II is Duke, not Duchess, of Normandy, because the duchy (consisting of the Channel Islands, not Normandy in France) is both under the control of the British monarch and governed by the Salic law. Therefore, for the purpose of that duchy, the Queen must be construed as legally male ", which is a frequently seen canard, (based mostly on the frisson it gives to toast to "To the Queen, our Duke").

The Queen is neither Duke nor Duchess of Normandy. Any claims by the British monarch to be "Duke of Normandy" were given up by the Treaty of Paris in 1295. However, the Channel Islands, which are not part of the UK, but are an independent territory, represent the remnant of the English Crown's French possessions and the only part of the Duchy of Normandy to remain after 1204. Queen Elizabeth II is called the islands' Duke, not Duchess, but this is a colloquial usage, related to a specific decision by Queen Victoria, who considered that "duchess" was undignified. But calling a female a duke doesn't make her eligible to inherit under Salic law: if Salic law pertained the heir would have to be male, not merely be called by a male title. In fact, Salic law has never been evoked with respect to Jersey. The Queen is the sovereign in Jersey as Queen, not as duke. For further details, see [1]

So, does this explain why the Queen is the Duke of Lancaster? -- Zoe

well, sort of... same basic underpinning, Queen Victoria thought it was less dignified to be referred to as a duchess than a duke. But of course, in legal terms, neither Victoria nor Elizabeth were either duke or duchess of Lancaster, they just got the income from that duchy. (Salic law had nothing to do with either Lancaster or the Channel Islands!) -- Someone else

Sorry but the British monarchy claims the "Duke of Normandy" title: [2] [3] [4]. That's also the way people want it in the Channel Islands and the French don't care at all about it... --Ann O'nyme 22:08, 19 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I think that this is clarified by the legal concept that the Sovereign and the Crown are separate entities. The various titles, as referred to here, and other offices are a part of the legal entity and authority of the Crown. The sovereign, in the present case, Queen Elizabeth II, holds her office under the Crown and derives her authority from it. So, although sovereigns change, the crown does not and it is this that holds the titles and offices which are referred to here.Miletus (talk) 15:58, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Another point would be that the early secular French peerages and most of its feudal principalities were not governed by Salic law until much later, most of the time not until they went in the royal domain. At the famous debate where salic law is said to have been adopted, although it was a legal fiction used a century later to justify the whole thing, Mahaut (sometimes called Marguerite) d'Artois was the peeress of Artois in her own right. David.

"Mahaut (sometimes called Marguerite) d'Artois was the peeress of Artois in her own right." yea but no in her own right by taken the county and peer of Artois to her nephew, Robert III d'Artois who should have been count in her place.92.157.195.132 (talk) 10:46, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Salian Franks

At this point, the article still does not even mention the Salian Franks. It reads as though Shakespeare wrote the damned thing. I'm fixing, but shouldn't have to... JHK

With respect to the 100 years war, no jurist mentioned the Salic Law as a reason why the English king should not be the king of France before the 15th century. Although the accession of Philip of Valois followed the Salic law, this does not mean that the Salic law determined the succession.

If Philip of Valois had been unambiguously the legal heir to the French throne in 1328, there would have been no need for him to require his neice Joan (the daughter of Louis X who had been passed up for the succession when she was six years old due to some combination her gender, minority, and possible illegitimacy, later Joan II, Queen of Navarre) to renounce her claim on the French throne. Shimmin 20:15, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Luxembourg

Isn't Luxembourg's independence due in some way to the Salic Law? If so anyone who knows the facts would be most welcome to add it to the interesting twists section at the end.

Salic Law was invoked by Luxemburg to leave the personal union with the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1890, when the king died without a male heir and the parliament of the Netherlands decided that his daughter should become queen. In Luxemburg he was succeeded by a someone from another line (the Walram line) of the same family. The reason is obviously not that Luxemburg is inherently more misogynistic than the Netherlands: After the secession of Belgium (1831-1839), the Luxembourg Crisis (1867), and Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871) the relation between the Netherlands and Luxemburg was considered a liability by both sides. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 145.18.192.124 (talk) 14:01, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

Cleanup

I've moved a large part of the article out into a sub article and have split the article up more. - FrancisTyers 19:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Right, I've done a bit more cleanup of formatting etc. Moved a link to wikisource, added a template blah blah. I'm at a loss as what needs to be done with the Female inheritance section. It is way too long for the rest of the article, should it be split out into another article (like agnatic succession) ? A further point, isn't this article supposed to be about Salic law? I had a brief look and there was a hell of a lot more to it than just succession. I think the article needs to reflect that, perhaps with a general introduction before going straight into inheritance and history. It isn't my field so I'm going to pass on that. Oh, and it needs to be sourced. - FrancisTyers 20:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Historical Consequences

this paragraph only states in general that Victoria could not inherit Hanover "because of Salic law", but it fails to explain what part of the law. I assume it was because Salic law may require a male successor, but it doesn't say so. It would be helpful if that was explained.. Dunnhaupt 19:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Confusing Salic with semi-Salic

Both here and in the section above on Luxembourg, and in several places in the article itself, the "Salic" explanation given for various successions is wrong. Neither Luxembourg nor Hannover had Salic law. Rather, they had semi-Salic law, which means that a female member of a dynasty can only inherit the throne after all males of the dynasty have died out. In both Luxembourg and Hannover, since there were males (albeit distantly related) who belonged to the same agnatic dynasty, when their respective King Williams died, the thrones went to those men instead of to their nearer-related female kin. Salic law was extremely rare by the 19th century, only being practiced by France, Sardinia and Sweden (with Bernadotte: Vasa Sweden allowed females to succeed), until the new Balkan monarchies (and Norway) took it up in the latter half of the 1800s and the early 20th century. Nor does "agnatic succession" absolutely exclude women: in English it means hereditary succession exclusively through males, not exclusively by males. The article needs re-writing with corrections. Lethiere (talk) 03:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Correct category?

Please see Category talk:Earliest known manuscripts by language. Enaidmawr (talk) 01:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Split Frankish and later materials.

It doesn't appear to me that the Frankish inheritance law described in this article and the material about male primogeniture in later kingdoms have much to do with one another except for the word "Salic". As the Frankish content appears fragmented and unclear to me (especially as it contains much less detail about Salic Law than the Early Germanic law article does), I wonder whether it would be improved by putting the two subjects in different articles. Aoeuidhtns (talk) 04:48, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

link to Irish celtic law?

How about a link to Irish celtic Brahon(spelling?) law ? They seem somewhat / much related. Would be interesting with a few words of comparison between the two as well (by someone who knows a bit more than I do on both :) 84.215.32.86 (talk) 10:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Let's say someone DID put something in. You wouldn't be able to trust it. WP is known for giving amateurs a shot at writing something. How can you rely on what THEY say? Since you would have to check it anyway, you might as well do the work yourself. If you find out anything interesting maybe you could write something for here. The professionals write books, they don't write WP articles, or if they do, not on their topics. Book and articles are what you want.Dave (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, while it might be fun and interesting (to law nerds such as myself) there's another hazard: The Salic Law adherents were surrounded by a number of other cultures. If I added Salic Law's comparison to, say, the Cymri (closer than the Irish Celts), the Swiss Celts or Avars, then the article can expand to unwieldy. We can always leave the comparisons to the diligent student. (As an aside - I know at least one person with scholar's credentials who does write WP articles to do his best to keep his students best informed by developments in the field.) LTC (Ret.) David J. Cormier (talk) 13:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Old Dutch Frankish

What is an "attestation" in here and how is it "direct"? Is the meaning "the only known remaining written instances of Old Dutch"?

Richard Ong (talk) 05:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I suppose an attestation is a written utterance. I suppose a direct attestation is a written witness to the utterance as opposed to a reconstructed form. I don't know, however, as this is not linguistic language. I suppose the editor means the Malberg Glosses are the only known instances of Old Low Franconian. Needs to be checked. Never can tell what has turned up; new things are discovered every year. Generally there is not enough here on language. I do plan to rewrite it.Dave (talk) 04:37, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

More uses of the Salic Law in the French history

The article omits the use of the Salic Law after the death of Kings Louis XII and Henri III and the abdication of King Charles X. Thank you,Nerissa-Marie (talk) 22:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)