The persons who receive and pay their share of the wergeld are those who would have taken part directly or indirectly in the feud. They are not confined to the expectant heirs of the slayer or the slain.[108]
If we are to learn anything directly upon the question of the method of landholding under Salic custom it must be, not from the clauses relating to the wergelds, but mainly from the Title LIX. De Alodis. It is the next title to the De chrenecruda and can hardly be passed by without some attempt to recognise the bearing of its clauses upon the present inquiry.
Its text is very variously rendered in the several manuscripts, and it has been the subject of many interpretations. But if it may be legitimate to approach it from a strictly tribal point of view, it will not be difficult, I think, to suggest an interpretation consistent with what we have learned of tribal custom from the Cymric example, and therefore worthy at least of careful consideration.
The title ‘De Alodis.’
According to Codex 1 of Hessels and Kern the clauses are as follows:—
(1) Si quis mortuus fuerit et filios non demiserit, si mater sua superfuerit ipsa in hereditatem succedat.
If any one shall have died and not have left sons, if his mother shall have survived let her succeed to the inheritance.
(2) Si mater non fuerit et fratrem aut sororem dimiserit, ipsi in hereditatem succedant.
If the mother shall not be [surviving] and he shall have left brother or sister, let them succeed to the inheritance.
(3) Tunc si ipsi non fuerint, soror matris in hereditatem succedat.