Similiter et si filias legitimas unam aut plures, aut filii naturales unum aut plures fuerint habeant legem suam, sicut in hoc edictum legitur. Quia inhumanum et impium nobis videtur, ut pro tali causa exhereditentur filii ab hereditatem patris sui pro eo, quod pater eorum in sinu avi mortuos est, sed ex omnibus ut supra aequalem cum patruis suis in locum patris post mortem avi percipiant portionem.
Likewise also if there were legitimate daughters, one or more, or natural sons, one or more, let them have their rights as is decreed in this edict. Because it seems to us inhuman and impious that for such a cause sons should be disinherited from the inheritance of their father because their father died in the mund of their grandfather. But let them take an equal portion with their uncles of everything in the place of their father.
The continued existence of community in the family property is shown by the fact that, even after the concession made in this clause, during the grandfather’s lifetime everything fell into the common stock and not till a family redivision was made after the grandfather’s death was the new rule admitting the sons’ succession along with their uncles to take effect.
To trace further the survivals of tribal custom in the Lombardic laws would lead us too far afield. The clauses already quoted are sufficient to show a remarkable similarity of custom in the case of tribes once neighbours on the Baltic notwithstanding that they had been widely separated and that there was an interval of five or six centuries between the dates of their laws.
CHAPTER IX.
TRIBAL CUSTOM IN SCOTLAND.
I. TRACES OF TRIBAL CUSTOM IN THE LAWS OF THE EARLY KINGS.
Tribal custom in the ancient laws of Scotland.