"Salic Law" was an ancient civil code compiled around 500 A.D. by the first Frankish King, Clovis. One of its tenets, significant to Henry V, stipulated that anyone with a claim to the French throne by descending from a previous sovereign on the female side was excluded from succession. Henry's supporters denied the legitimacy of Salic law by contending that it was an outdated code originally meant for the realm of Germany, not France.