Regulation of civil legal relations according to the Salic truth

Abstract

The presented article is devoted to the analysis of the norms of the Salic Law which regulated civil legal relations of the Frankish society. The article notes that the Salic Law is a collection that was primarily devoted to the rules of criminal law and criminal procedure. Less attention was paid to the norms of civil law. This was due to the fact that the agricultural economy was not organized on a contractual basis. However, despite this, it contained rules that regulated property rights, obligations, marriage and family law, and inheritance law. The author has established that the Salic Law does not have a clear definition of property. The Franks retained communal ownership of land for a long time, as the rural neighborhood community, the marka, continued to exist despite the formation of the state. It is noted that at the end of the sixth century, the Franks formed a «full allod» – freely alienable land property, which was allowed to be freely given, transferred and bequeathed, including to women. A movable property was owned by families or individuals and could also be freely alienated and inherited. Based on the analysis of the norms of the Salic Law, the author found that the law of obligations was the least developed. There were such types of contracts as sale and purchase, exchange, gift, and loan. For a contract to be valid, in addition to the consent of the parties, it was necessary to observe various rites. As for marriage and family law, the article states that a legal marriage could be concluded between an adult free man and an adult free woman (no minimum age was set), subject to the consent of their relatives and provided that both parties were not bound by prohibited ties of kinship. Marriage was concluded through the purchase of a wife, i.e. power over her, from the person who had previously exercised this power over her. The grounds for invalidating a marriage were also defined. The author also analyzes the order of inheritance according to the Salic Law. It is established that the heirs in descending order were: children (and their descendants); mother and father; brothers and sisters; father’s sisters; mother’s sisters; father’s relatives (up to the sixth generation). Allodial land was а family land, it could not be inherited by females.