Allo'dium

Allo'dium, or ALLODIAL TENURE, has no well-defined general meaning in Law. It refers to a primitive form of land-tenure, which, both in Celtic and Teutonic communities, seems to have succeeded the original shifting allotment among the members of the tribe, the sors of the Burgundian law. The allod, udal, or duchas was an untaxed freehold held by right of blood. In Scandinavia its owner was the Holder, in Ireland the Brugaidh, in some parts of Germany the Bonder, in Kent the Gaveller. The allod was in some places inalienable, except in cases of starvation, and was not confiscated by the felony of the holder. Its most definite characteristic was freedom from the homage and other burdens which came in with the feud. Prior to feudalism, for instance, the land of France was either allodial or fiscal, under the official tenure of the graphio. The franc alleu noble was practically an allod conferred by a grant of salica terra or royal land. The extension of royal authority led to the system of benefices, and ultimately, under the influence of the Roman land doctrine of emphyteusis, to that of feus. Prior to the Conquest the feudalism that existed in England was based on service and the comitatus of the king, and was therefore different from the developed continental feudalism, of which the knight-service and the duties payable were the basis. But although the bocland of the Anglo-Saxons resembles the primitive allod, the latter had disappeared before the Norman Conquest. When the principal landholders of England surrendered their lands into the hands of the Conqueror at the council of Sarum, feudalism was formally recognised, and it henceforth became a fundamental maxim in the law of real property, that 'the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom, and that no man doth or can possess any part of it, but what has medietely or immediately been derived as a gift from him, to be held upon feudal services' (Blackstone, vol. ii. p. 51, Kerr's edition). See FEUDALISM. This change was accomplished by private arrangements between the allodial proprietors and the prince, the former being anxious to exchange their nominal independence for the greater security enjoyed by the vassals of the sovereign, the latter being willing to receive them as dependents, for the sake either of their personal services in war, or latterly, for the equivalents of these services, in money or the produce of the lands. In some countries, feudalism, though general, was not universal; and allodial tenures consequently continued to subsist alongside of those originating with the crown. In this position was Denmark, and it is curious that the only examples of allodial tenures to be met with in Great Britain are the Udal rights in the islands of Orkney and Shetland, which formerly belonged to that country. These lands are generally held without written title, and entirely free from feudal action. By the law of Scotland, all property and superiorities belonging to the crown itself, and all churches, churchyards, manses, and glebes, the right to which does not flow from the crown, are regarded as allodial; and the term in a wider sense, as opposed to feudal generally, is sometimes used with reference to movable property. The word udal occurs in a statute of the Scottish parliament so recently as 1690. In the United States, although the word fee is in use, the feudal relation does not exist, and the title to land is essentially allodial. Every tenant in fee simple has absolute and unqualified dominion over his land.