Allodial title
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Higher category: Law and Common law |
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land.
Most property ownership in common law jurisdictions is fee simple. In the United States, the land is subject to eminent domain by federal, state and local government, and subject to the imposition of taxes by state and/or local governments, and there is thus no true allodial land. Land is "held of the Crown" in England and Wales and other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth realms. Some land in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, known as udal land, is held in a manner akin to allodial land in that these titles are not subject to the ultimate ownership of the Crown.
In France, while allodial title existed before the
Property owned under allodial title is referred to as allodial land, allodium, or an
Legal concept
Allodial lands are the absolute property of their owner and not subject to any
Allodium, meaning "land exempt from feudal duties", is first attested in English-language texts in the 11th-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 (c. 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).[4] Allodial tenure seems to have been common throughout northern Europe,[2] but is now unknown in common law jurisdictions apart from Scotland and the Isle of Man. An allod could be converted into a fief, by the owner surrendering it to a lord and receiving it back as a fief.[5]
Allodial land title is common in the
One such exception is the
Another exception is Somerset House which was vested in His Majesty explicitly not in fee simple, and is held to be allodial.
See also
- Allod – Historic type of land estate
- Assarting – Clearing of forested lands for use in agriculture or other purposes
- Frälse – Socially privileged class in Sweden
- Land tenure – Legal regime in which area owned by an individual is held by another person
- Lord paramount – Feudal overlord: a lord with no obligations to a higher lord
- Manorialism – Economic, political and judicial institution during the Middle Ages in Europe
- Mark system
- Microstate – Sovereign state having a very small population or very small land area
- Nulle terre sans seigneur
- Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges – French historian
- Odellsrett – Scandinavian family land laws
- Property tax in the United States
- Quia Emptores – English statute of 1290
- Serfdom – Status of peasants under feudalism
- Slander of title – species of malicious falsehood relating to real estate
- Torrens title – Land registration and land transfer system
References
- ^ Express, Britain. "Domesday Book glossary". Britain Express.
- ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 698.
- ISBN 978-1-4411-7794-0.
- ^ C.T. Onions, ed., Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, s.v. "allodium" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 26–27.
- ISBN 0-19-820458-2.
- ^ Livingston, Niall (2006). The MacLeas or Livingstones and their Allodial Barony of the Bachuil (PDF). Baronage Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 May 2018. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
Sources
- Otto Brunner: Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter. Darmstadt 1984 (unveränderter Nachdruck der 5. Auflage von 1965).
- K. H. Burmeister: "Allod". In: Norbert Angermann (Hrsg.): Lexikon des Mittelalters. Bd. 1. München [u.a.] 1980.
- William Bennett Munro, 1907, The Seigneurial System in Canada: A study in French Colonial Policy Harvard Historical Studies, Vol. XII, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
External links
- The dictionary definition of allodial title at Wiktionary