Allodium
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
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This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. Part or all of this article has been imported from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported text may be significantly out of date, and any more recent developments may be completely missing |
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Allodium, Alodium or Allodial title is a legal term for lands which are the absolute property of their owner, and not subject to any service or acknowledgment to a superior. It is thus the opposite of fe-odum or fief. The proper derivation of the word has been much discussed and is still doubtful, though it is probably compounded of all, meaning whole or entire, and odh, property. Allodial tenure seems to have been common throughout northern Europe.
It exists in Orkney and Shetland, as part of Udal Law but is unknown in England, where the feudal system was made universal by William the Conqueror.
