PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 325 
and instances in the writings of Beda, and of Gregory of Tours, 
show how common marriages of this character were both in 
Frankish Gaul and in Anglo-Saxon England. Even as late as 
the time of Henry I. of England the marriage of a woman with 
two brothers is referred to in one of his laws as “ humbling her 
to the day of her death” (7). It is easily understood, however, 
why the husband’s brother is included among those who are 
entitled to the brideprice, because under maternal descent he 
always occupies a prominent position. Under this descent the 
widow, her sister, and the ‘“ consobrina,” are all on the same 
level, being sisters, and the nepos, the neptis, and the filius 
consobrine are also in the relation of brother and sister. The 
fact that these persons, from the widow’s maternal uncle down 
to the individual indicated by the last “joint,” are all links 
in a line of maternal descent, most strongly suggests that this 
law is a rudimentary custom (4), carrying us back to a time 
when the ancestors of the Franks had not emerged from that 
level of savagery in which descent through the mother is alone 
recognised. But this enumeration of successive individuals, to 
whom the Reippus is due failing each predecessor, shows a strong 
departure in the direction of individualisation from the group, 
which, however, still remains in evidence in many of the laws. 
Such an instance is the law entitled De Chren-ceuda (2), which 
provides a formal procedure, by which a man might shift 
his share of the weregeld for homicide, from his own shoulders 
on to those of his paternal and maternal groups of kindred. 
The second version of the law of Reippus, which I shall now 
quote is the same as the one which I have given from the first 
up to the fourth clause. The fifth to the eleventh differ, and 
those of the Pactus are as follows. Diagram II. is that given in 
Eccard’s note (7). 
DIAGRAM IT. 
(1) Avuneulus (2) Mater (3) Soror 
viduee viduce matris 
viduce 
(4) Frater (5) Vidua (6) Frater (7) Soror (8) Consobrinus 
mariti viduse viduze 
prioris (9) Maritus 
prior 
(10) Filius (11) Nepos (12) Nepos (13) Neptis (14) Filius 
viduse senior 
(15) Filius 
senior 
(j) Leges ‘‘ Henrici Primi, Consuedo West Sexee,” Cap. 70, § 17. Schmid, p. 471. 
(k) I avail myself of this most apt term which was suggested by Spencer and Gillen in 
<The Native Tribes of Central Australia.” 
(2) ** Pactus Legis Salice,” Tit. LXI. ‘‘Canciani,’”? Vol. I. 
(m) ‘‘ Canciani,” Vol. IT., p. 88 
