Allodial Title - Legal Concept

Legal Concept

Allodial lands are the absolute property of their owner and not subject to any rent, service, or acknowledgment to a superior. Allodial title is therefore the opposite of feudal land tenure. However, historian J.C. Holt states that "In Normandy the word alodium, whatever its sense in other parts of the Continent, meant not land held free of seigneurial services, but land held by hereditary right," and that "alodium and feodum should be given the same meaning in England."

Allodium, meaning "land exempt from feudal duties", is first attested in English-language texts in the 12th-century Domesday Book, but was borrowed from Old Low Franconian *allōd, meaning "full property", and attested in Latin as e.g., alodis, alaudes, in the Salic law (ca. A.D. 507-596) and other Germanic laws. The word is a compound of *all "whole, full" and *ōd "estate, property" (cf. Old Saxon ōd, Old English ead, Old Norse auðr). Allodial tenure seems to have been common throughout northern Europe, but is now unknown in common law jurisdictions apart from the United States. Allodial titles are known as udal tenure in Orkney and Shetland, the only parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland where they exist.