Germanic of such written law on the Continent, displaying virtually no evidence of a
Christian or a Roman influence.
The society seen in Salic Law, overwhelmingly rural and agricultural, is based on the
strong ties of an extended family and the cohesion of tightly knit communities. Salic Law
deals chiefly with private law and is concerned primarily with property and inheritance
and the peaceful resolution of disputes that arise over everyday crimes—theft, property
damage, personal injuries, sexual offenses, and homicide. Wergelds, monetary
compensations for injuries, ties of kinship, and the feud dominate its provisions.
One of the most famous “provisions” is the so-called Salic Law of Succession. In the
14th and 15th centuries, it was alleged that Salic Law forbade women to inherit property
or to succeed to the throne or even to transmit such a claim to succession to their
descendants. However, there is no factual basis to these claims.
Steven Fanning
[See also: FRANKS; LAW AND JUSTICE; WERGELD]
Rivers, Theodore John, trans. The Laws of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks. New York: AMS,
1986.
Murray, Alexander Callander. Germanic Kinship Structure: Studies in Law and Society in Antiquity
and the Early Middle Ages. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983, pp. 115–
33.
Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in Frankish History. London:
Methuen, 1962.
SALUT D’AMOR
. Verse love letter. Also called domnejaire, the Occitan salut d’amor incorporates
standard courtly themes in the five-part structure prescribed in medieval Latin letter
books. Arnaut de Mareuil composed five of the twenty surviving saluts. Whereas the
Occitan salut is typically nonstrophic, the genre developed in northern France into a
stanzaic piece with refrain, sometimes called complainte d’amour.
Elizabeth W.Poe
Bec, Pierre. Les saluts d’amour du troubadour Arnaud de Ma-reuil. Toulouse: Privat, 1961.
SARLAT
. A picturesque city with numerous Renaissance façades, Sarlat (Dordogne) grew up
around the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Sacerdos. The Romanesque church was
demolished in 1504 in favor of the present cathedral, which was completed in the 17th
century. The sole remains are the western bell tower (upper stage is 17th-c.), a
Romanesque window and wall fragments in the chevet, and the restored chapel of St.
Benoît, south of the cathedral. The sacristy with ogive vaulting was a 14th-century
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