r SALIQUE LAW (Lex Salica), 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 inherit.

Some, as Postelius, would have it to have been called Salic, as it Gallic, because peculiar to the Gauls. Montanus insists that it was so named because Pharamond was at first called Salicus. Others will have it to be so named as having been made for the Salic lands. These were noble fiefs which the first kings used to bestow on the Sallians, that is, the great lords of their salle or court, without any other tenure than military service; and for this reason such fiefs were not to descend to women, as being by nature unfit for such a tenure. Some, again, derive the origin of this word from the Sallians, a tribe of Franks that settled in Gaul in the reign of Julian, who is said to have given them lands upon condition of their personal service in war. He even passed the conditions into a law, which the new conquerors acquiesced in, and called it salie, from the name of their former countrymen.