France was the only country in Europe that practiced strict Salic law where the throne could not pass to a daughter nor through the female line. So how would France look if this hsdn't been the case and how would this have affected the other countries around that time? Would there even be a France?
No Salic Law in France
- Thread starter BillieJeanDab
- Start date
All The Little Germanies offer you a "What?" It's called Salic Law because of the Holy Roman Empire's Salian Dynasty.
It's... not? The name come from the Salian Franks, and Clovis, as it happens, was a Salian Frank.
So it's hard to imagine a France without the Salic law, because it's directly tied to the kingdom's existence. You could have France not founded by Franks and thus no Salian Law, but then would it certainly wouldn't be called France, and it's debatable if it really would be France to begin with.
You could also lose the restriction afterward, I guess, but I'm not really sure what cirmustances could allow that.
This is not as much Salic Law, than a pretty legalist interpretation of Late Antiqiuty laws on Barbarians (which giving their miilitary role couldn't pass their land to someone not able to fight). While transmission from male-to-male was the rule in Northern France, it wasn't systematical and this approach on succession law was basically a legal justification for an unprecedented situation for what french kingship was concerned : Valois were taking the crown without much opposition worth of mention but especially in a XIVth century where royal authority was backed by a first legalist-bureaucratic base, it didn't hurt to make things set in stone and if possible on ancient stone.
See, successions laws in Middle-Ages are made more or less as things happens or rather don't happen as usual : there was zero law about male-to-male inheritence of the kingship before the XIVth because there was no need to confirm it. If Capetians somehow managed to have direct heirs at each generation in the XIVth century, you wouldn't have a "Salic Law" to speak of, in the sense of royal succession matters.
Pretty much the same : of course, you may not have a HYW ITTL, but that wouldn't be a consequence of no (pretty wild) interpretation of Salic Law, but both as a consequence of no dynastical shift.
It really played no role and didn't existed as a royal succession matter before the XIVth century.
Historical Salic Law was basically an adaptation of Roman law on Barbarians (laeti and foedi), so it might not really work out.
Last edited:
Could you not have it diverge into semi-salic law where women can inherit but only when there is an absolute absence of any male heir - at which point the closest female heir to the last male holder takes the throne.
I believe this was what Hanover practiced for the most part.
So you would need the French monarchy to reach a point where a King only had several daughters - and there were no direct male heirs (collateral or otherwise) as any male heir would have a female above them in the line of succession.
A succession crisis occurs but the crown is handed over to the eldest daughter and on to her eldest child.
I believe this was what Hanover practiced for the most part.
So you would need the French monarchy to reach a point where a King only had several daughters - and there were no direct male heirs (collateral or otherwise) as any male heir would have a female above them in the line of succession.
A succession crisis occurs but the crown is handed over to the eldest daughter and on to her eldest child.
Thing is, the male-to-male succession was firmly established by the XIVth, essentially on historical precedents. Of course, it wasn't written down and could have been changed and formalized otherwise, but you'd need vastly different political-dynastical situation giving the preference of everyone involved for a male king that was from the land he was supposed to rule.
Then it would pass to his brothers, or his cousins, etc. This is not, considering the situation in succession matters, enough of a cause : you could have something, that said, if collaterals weren't native to the kingdom and without networking among the nobles. Even there, you might not have women being sole rulers (the case being relatively rare at this scale, and really fought against with the reintroduction of Roman Law), but possibly transmitting their rights to their son or husband, essentially a Charles of Navarre style case.
The earlier the precedent is, the easier it is to make it a rule.
Got a question.Wasn’t a lot of titles and properties in Northern France passed through the female line as well(e.g. Robert Curthose was Count of Maine for a while because of his first wife)?
Titles and properties, yes, altough this is far from systematical and generally goes down to political situation rather than rule.
Royal authority and prestige wasn't really in the same league, that being said, especially due to the huge charismatisation and quasi-religious properties (kingship was sometimes, albeit rarely, considered as a special sacrament) and such its own special case in a misdt of male-to-male preference.
Yes but it's whether the same rules apply to the Crown of the French or not.
The so called Salic Law was essentially a statement saying it can't because there could only be a King and that only agnatic inheritance counted. Edward III (and his lawyers!) argued that Kings Only didn't rule out proximal inheritance so that eldest sons of French Princesses counted.
As I understand it, the salicism was only strictly enforced outside of the crown itself following the Valois. So some noble titles that existed prior to that could be handed down through the female line (like certain Scottish titles).
The bigger problem is it meant that the crown could not be inherited via a female line (so the crown couldn't pass to a male cousin/nephew if it had to pass through an aunt/sister to reach the male heir). So perhaps THAT would be the first step in revocation of salicism - to allow the crown to pass through the female line rather than having to pass exclusively via continuous male lineage - essentially the Edward III inheritence argument.
The bigger problem is it meant that the crown could not be inherited via a female line (so the crown couldn't pass to a male cousin/nephew if it had to pass through an aunt/sister to reach the male heir). So perhaps THAT would be the first step in revocation of salicism - to allow the crown to pass through the female line rather than having to pass exclusively via continuous male lineage - essentially the Edward III inheritence argument.
Well, in fact the Salic law as a "women are totally forbidden" only dates to the succession crisis wit the last mainline Capetians. When Louis X died and his posthume son too, the question was "Are we going to let a 4 years old child which might be a bastard access to the throne, even though she is also Queen of Navarre ?". Since her uncle really wanted to get the throne, the answer was no. Then, with the treaty of Troyes, the King of England should have become King of France after Charles VI Capet, through feminine succession, so the King said "a women has no right to inherit, so she can not pass more rights than she have". The Salic law was not a core mechanic of the French Kingdom, the French Kingdom was elective, then, after many elections of the son of the previous King, Primogeniture was adopted, and then, they didn't have to make some clear laws about girls, since there was the Capetian miracle.
Was there any formal agreement for that or did the French kings just not bother electing their sons anymore and everyone else didn't make a fuss about it?
Second option, the election became barely a formality before disappearing
Did Edward III and his lawyers ever formally declare Joan of Navarre to be a bastard?I know that her 'paternal' uncles were reluctant to do that because they,along with her maternal uncle just wanted to get the whole thing over and done with.
Thanks.
This is what happened with royal legal decisions : while they generally mattered only to royal lands strictly speaking, they tended to be adopted relatively quickly by their vassals out of hegemonic influence, just as the abolition of serfdom in 1314.
Primogeniture was less adopted than being the result of decades of succession precedents : let's be clear that you don't really have succession laws in Middle-Ages (safe for its latter part), and what mattered firstmost was to see if it happened before. It's only with the reintroduction of Roman Law, especially on anministrative/bureaucratic matters, that some practices were set in stone, even if decisions would be remembered.
We use elective kingship out of convenience, but apart from the late Xth century, it was rather a "proclamative" kingship by an unformal assembly of aristocrats, bishops, petty-nobility and "populus". Again, the dynastical principle is extremely important there.
Sorry but this assumption is just wrong.
Although it was not named Salic Law, in the HRE, and then in the German Confederacy that succeeded it in 1814, all the kingdom and electoral principalities had basically the same succession laws as France. Which is that when a king or prince has no male offspring, then his closest male relative on the older younger branch succeeds him even if he had daughters.
This is why, by exception, emperor Charles VI had to devise the pragmatic sanction for his elder daughter Maria Theresa could retain the Habsburg ancestral kingdom of Bohemia and other principalities.
This is why lateral male branches of the Wittelsbach succeeded to the elder branch in Rhine Palatinate and in Bavaria.
This is why Victoria of Great Britain did not become also queen of Hanover.
Now, to answer your question, if France had not decided to have only males of the continuous male branches to succeed to the throne, I think the first POD would be the 1322 succession, not the 1316 one.
Because in 1316, the question of gender was subsidiary.
The first arguments put forward by the future Philip V, then regent, and his supporters, to rule out his niece Joan of France/Navarre, was that she was too young and that there were doubts that she be the daughter of Louis X.
You can call it kind of a coup. But the point was that Philip V was the strong man of the family and that he had gathered enough support from those who either preferred him for his governing abilities or preferred him because they wanted stability and feared the uncertainty of having a young child (Joan was then but 5 years old and child mortality rate was terribly high even in the nobility) and of having a daughter who could but transmit the crown and kingly power to her still unknown future husband.
This being said, in 1322, no Salic Law means the successor of Philip V as king of France will be the Capetian duke Odo IV of Normandy (1295-1349), husband of Philip V’s elder daughter Joan (1308-1347)
They had only one child, Philip (1323-1346), who died just before his parents.
This will probably be butterflied away by Odo and Joan’s access to the royal throne of France. Because this Philip would then be heir to the royal throne and, as such, will probably not directly participate in the fights of the feudal war in which he was OTL deadly wounded.
The other point which will be butterflied away is this Philip’s marriage. As future king of France, he will marry someone else than OTL Joan of Auvergne. And you can then make it like you want. Either they have many children. Or they have but one child who dies young (like OTL Philip of Rouvres) and this opens a new succession crisis.
But what it will change is that the duchy of Burgundy, the county of Burgundy, and the county of Artois will become part of the royal domain. Which OTL happened only 150 to 350 years later.
And the Royal branch of the Capetians will probably get Flanders by the late 14th century.
Massive change which makes France more powerful than it already was and which probably butterflies away the rivalry and then civil war with the too powerful OTL second Capetian House of Burgundy.
Only Joan of France will become Queen of Navarre only after her uncles also died (Navarre was an inheritance from her grandmother Joan, the wife of Philip IV) so she was not the heiress of Navarre at that time
I think the Salic Law will be always a problem after the 1316's succession (as that was the main reason for the 1322 succession). A best way for butterflying that is having Joan dying in 1316 instead of her newborn half-brother John I and having him die some years later if you want Odo and Joan of Burgundy on the throne