Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/454

402 To understand the nature of those Salic lands, there needs no more than to search into the usages or customs with respect to land amongst the Franks before they came out of Germany.

Mr. Echard has very plainly proved that the word Salic is derived from Sala, which signifies a house; and, that therefore, the Salic land was the land of the house. I shall go farther, and examine what was the house, and what the land belonging to the house, among the Germans.

"They dwell not in towns, says Tacitus, nor can they bear to have their houses joined to those of others; every one leaves a space or small piece of ground about his house, which is inclosed and shut up." Tacitus is very exact in this account; for many laws of the Barbarian codes have different decrees against those who threw down this enclosure, as well as against those who broke into the house.

We learn from Tacitus and Cæsar, that the lands cultivated by the Germans, were given them only for the space of a year; after which they again became public. They had no other patrimony but the house and a piece of land, within the inclosure that surrounded it. It was this particular patrimony which belonged to the males. And indeed how could it belong to the daughters? they were to pass into another house.

The Salic land was then within that enclosure, which belonged to a German house, this was the Rh