But as long as the male sex survive, a woman shall not succeed to the hereditas aviatica.
All that need be remarked regarding this title is, first its close resemblance to the clause ‘de alodis’ in the Lex Salica and the confirmation given by the phrase ‘hereditas aviatica’ to the family character of the ‘alod,’ and secondly that it seems to belong to the time when female succession was favoured.
Whether the ‘hereditas aviatica’ included the whole alod or only the land of the alod, on failure of male heirs, females were now to succeed.
The traditional value of animals in payment of wergelds. The wergeld of 200 solidi = 100 oxen.
There remains only to be noticed the interesting addition to Tit. XXXVI. which enacts that if any one ought to pay wergeld he should reckon, inter alia:—
| The ox, horned, seeing, and sound, for | 2 solidi |
| The cow, horned, seeing, and sound, for [3 or] | 1 solidus |
| The horse, seeing and sound, for | 6 solidi |
| The mare, seeing and sound, for | 3 ” |
And this is followed by a final clause which is found only in some of the manuscripts and which is probably an addition made under Charlemagne:—
If payment shall be made in silver, let 12 denarii be paid for the solidus, sicut antiquitus est constitutum.
Thus our consideration of these laws ends with the fact that, before the disturbance in the currency made by Charlemagne, the wergeld of the Frankish freeman of 200 gold solidi or heavy gold mina was still, in the Ripuarian district at all events, a normal wergeld of 100 oxen.