eternal felicity. Furthermore, the saints were believed to perform valuable aid in times of
danger or distress, such as childbirth (Margaret) or plague (Roch).
Paul Barrette
[See also: ANGLO-NORMAN LITERATURE; BARLAAM ET JOSAPHAT;
BENEDEIT; GAUTIER DE COINCI; HAGIOGRAPHY; LEGENDA AUREA;
MIRACLE PLAYS; SAINT ALEXIS, VIE DE; SAINT LÉGER, VIE DE; SAINT PLAYS;
SAINTE EULALIE, SÉQUENCE DE; SAINTE FOY, CHANSON DE; SAINTS, CULT
OF; SERMONS JOYEUX; VIES DES ANCIENS PÈRES; WACE]
Montaiglon, Anatole de, and James Rothschild, eds. Recueil de poésies françoises des XVe et XVIe
siècles, morales, facétieuses, historiques. Paris: Daffis, 1877, Vol. 12.
Barrette, Paul. “Fifteenth-Century Hagiographic Poems in French.” In Le gai savoir: Essays in
Linguistics, Philology, and Criticism, Dedicated to the Memory of Manfred Sandmann, ed.
Mechthild Cranston. Madrid: Turanzas, 1983, pp. 55–68.
Bowen, Willis H. “Present Status of Studies in Saints’ Lives in Old French Verse.” Symposium
1(1947):82–86.
Cazelles, Brigitte. Le corps de sainteté, d’après Jehan Bouche d’Or, Jehan Paulus et quelques vies
des XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Geneva: Droz, 1982.
Dembowski, Peter F. “Literary Problems of Hagiography in Old French.” Medievalia et
humanistica 7(1976):117–30.
Johnson, Phyllis, and Brigitte Cazelles. Le vain siècle guerpir: A Literary Approach to Sainthood
Through Old French Hagiography of the Twelfth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1979.
Meyer, Paul. “Légendes hagiographiques en français.” Histoire littéraire de la France
33(1906):328–458.
SALIC LAW
. The body of laws promulgated by Merovingian and Carolingian kings for the Salian
Franks and those living within their territory of Neustria. The first version of the Lex
Salica, the Pactus legis Salicae was probably issued by Clovis I between 507 and 511.
Although it and all later versions were written in Latin, the law was based on Frankish
customary practices, which makes it an invaluable source for early Frankish legal and
social life. Major modifications and additions were made from the mid-6th century to the
mid-9th. The extant manuscripts are confusing and difficult to understand, as they
represent many redactions and were subjected to innumerable revisions and efforts at
correction. To the Carolingians, Salic Law was probably primarily of antiquarian interest.
It continued to be studied long after the Carolingian period and was influential in the
development of law in northern France up to the French Revolution.
The provisions of Salic Law do not constitute a comprehensive or even orderly
collection of Frankish law. They do not form a true code of law. Rather, they concern
matters that needed to be repeated, reinforced, clarified, or amended. Moreover, a king
might issue laws merely so as to be seen as a lawgiver. The Pactus legis Salicae is the
oldest written version of laws concerning a West Germanic people, and it is the most
The Encyclopedia 1617