The legal code of the Salian Franks, which originated in 5th century Gaul. It was issued by Clovis (465–511) and reissued under the Carolingians. It contained both criminal and civil clauses and provided for penal fines for offenders. It also laid down that daughters could not inherit land and was later used in France and in some German principalities to prevent daughters succeeding to the throne.
(Gengler, "Germanische Rechtsdenkmaeler," p. 267.)
Title I. Concerning Summonses.
1. If any one be summoned before the "Thing" by the king's law, and do not come, he shall be sentenced to 600 denars, which make 15 shillings (solidi).
2. But he who summons another, and does not come himself, shall, if a lawful impediment have not delayed him, be sentenced to 15 shillings, to be paid to him whom he summoned.
3. And he who summons another shall walk with witnesses to the home of that man, and, if he be not at home, shall bid the wife or any one of the family to make known to him that he has been summoned to court.
4. But if he be occupied in the king's service he can not summon him.
5. But if he shall be inside the hundred seeing about his own affairs, he can summon him in the manner explained above.
Title II. Concerning Thefts of Pigs, etc.
1. If any one steal a sucking pig, and it be proved against him, he shall be sentenced to 120 denars, which make three shillings.
2. If any one steal a pig that can live without its mother, and it be proved on him, he shall be sentenced to 40 denars — that is, 1 shilling.
14. If any one steal 25 sheep where there were no more in that flock, and it be proved on him, he shall be sentenced to 2500 denars — that is, 62 shillings.
Title III. Concerning Thefts of Cattle.
4. If any one steal that bull which rules the herd and never has been yoked, he shall be sentenced to 1800 denars, which make 45 shillings.
5. But if that bull is used for the cows of three villages in common, he who stole him shall be sentenced to three times 45 shillings.
6. If any one steal a bull belonging to the king he shall be sentenced to 3600 denars, which make 90 shillings.
Title IV. Concerning Damage done among Crops or in any Enclosure.
1. If any one finds cattle, or a horse, or flocks of any kind in his crops, he shall not at all mutilate them.
2. If he do this and confess it, he shall restore the worth of the animal in place of it, and shall himself keep the mutilated one.
3. But if he have not confessed it, and it have been proved on him, he shall be sentenced, besides the value of the animal and the fines for delay, to 600 denars, which make 15 shillings.
Title XI. Concerning Thefts or Housebreakings of Freemen.
1. If any freeman steal, outside of the house, something worth 2 denars, he shall be sentenced to 600 denars, which make 15 shillings.
2. But if he steal, outside of the house, something worth 40 denars, and it be proved on him, he shall be sentenced, besides the amount and the fines for delay, to 1400 denars, which make 35 shillings.
3. If a freeman break into a house and steal something worth 2 denars, and it be proved on him, he shall be sentenced to 15 shillings.
4. But if he shall have stolen something worth more than 5 denars. and it have been proved on him, he shall be sentenced, besides the worth of the object and the fines for delay, to 1400 denars, which make 35 shillings.
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages/Book II/The Salic Law by (1892) translated by Ernest Flagg Henderson
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