PARDESSUS, Jean-Marie (Ed.)

Paris, a l’Imprimerie Royale, 1843. Large 8vo. (4),+ LXXX,+ 739,+ (1) pp. Foxing. Worn contemporary black half calf, gilt spine, red marbled board papers and green marbled edges. From the library of Nils S. von Koch at Augerum. First edition of this important text edition of the Salic Law, the ancient Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King Clovis. Amendments to the law were made during the whole of the middle ages and none of the surviving manusctipts gives the original version. The Salic law is important both as a source for the early Germanic law and it gives an insight into Frankish society, but also for for lingustic studies. Its most controversial importance is however concering female inheritance, as it prohibited women from inheriting land, the ”agnatic succession”. This developed during the Middle ages into the rule that woman can’t inherit the throne.Jean Marie Pardessus (1772-1853) was a French lawyer and editor of old legal manuscript, and since 1828 a member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. His critical edition of the Loi salique with his commentaries was an important contribution for the knowledge of the text.