[Sidenote: The Latin and old Danish versions of Scanian law.] There are two versions of the Scanian Law, one in Latin and the other in old Danish. They differ considerably and are certainly not translations one of the other, though an older text may have been the foundation of them both. They both refer to recently made modifications of local custom which fix their date to the early years of the thirteenth century. The author of the Latin text was the Archbishop of Lund (A.D. 1206-1215), and from the use made by him of legal terms borrowed more or less from Roman law it may be gathered that Scanian custom required for him more explanation than the Danish writer deemed it necessary to give.[186] The rules with regard to wergelds cannot be quoted as representing unmodified ancient custom. They avowedly are the result of modifications made to remedy evils which had arisen partly, no doubt, from the gradual loosening of the ties of kindred. In the same way the clauses as to property represent the results of long-continued conflict between ancient rules of family holding and gradual innovations in the direction of individual ownership. In this they resemble the Lex Salica. Still if family holdings more or less on the lines of the Cymric gwely, or the Salic alod, had once been the prevalent form of occupation, even new rules making alterations could hardly fail to reveal traces of older custom. The special value to this inquiry of the ‘Lex Scania antiqua’ is that it does so. Disguised as some of these traces may be in the Latin text, under Roman phraseology, with the Danish version at hand it ought not to be difficult to recognise the meaning of the facts disclosed. [Sidenote: When there was arrangement on marriage widow took half of their joint property if no children.] The first chapter relates to the rights of a wife surviving her husband when there are no children of the marriage. Omnia que in hereditate sunt mobilia, vel se moventia,[187] vel immobilia, precio tempore matrimonii comparata, equis sunt partibus dividenda, medietate heredes defuncti proximos cum prediis que propria ipsius fuerant et uxorem altera cum suis prediis contingente.… All things in the _hereditas_ which are moveable or cattle or immoveable, brought in by value fixed at the time of the marriage, are to be divided in equal parts, one part appertaining to the next heirs of the deceased [husband] with the lands which were his own, and the other part to the wife together with her lands.