- Title LIX. Concerning Private Property 6. But of Salic land no portion of the inheritance shall come to a woman: but the whole inheritance of the land shall come to the male sex.
Shakespeare uses the Salic law as a plot device in his play Henry V, and states that it was upheld by the French to bar the claim of Henry V from the throne of France. The play Henry V starts with the Archbishop of Canterbury being asked if Henry's claim can be upheld despite the law. The Archbishop says that it is not a French law but a German one.
The Salic law is responsible for some interesting chapters of history. The Carlist Wars occurred in Spain over the question of whether the heir to the throne should be a woman or a distant male relative. The War of the Austrian Succession was triggered by the Pragmatic sanction in which Charles VI of Austria attempted to overturn Salic Law to ensure the succession of Maria Theresa of Austria.
The British throne lost claim to that of Hanover when Queen Victoria was crowned; Hanover practiced the Salic law, while Britain did not. Salic law was also an important issue in the Schleswig-Holstein question.
Finally, though it is sometimes claimed that Queen Elizabeth II is duke, not duchess, of Normandy, because of Salic law, she in fact claims no such title (nor could she, if Salic law pertained), though she is toasted in the Channel Islands (the only part of the former duchy of Normandy still held by her) as "Our Queen the Duke."
See also: Hundred Years' War