Allodium

An allod (Old Low Franconian allōd ‘fully owned estate’, from all ‘full, entire’ and ōd ‘estate’, Medieval Latin allodium), also allodial land or allodium, refers, in the law of the Middle Ages and early Modern Period and especially within the Holy Roman Empire, to a freehold estate in land over which the allodial landowner (allodiary) had full ownership and right of alienation.

This form of ownership meant that the landowner owed no feudal duties to any other person. An allod could be inherited freely according to the usual law of the land. To begin with, the income from allodial estates was not even liable for taxes paid to the territorial princes (Landesfürsten).

In all of these ways, the allod differed from fiefs, which were mere tenures held by feudatories (Lehnsmänner) or their vassals (Vasallen). Overall suzerainty of a fief remained with the feudal lord, who could require of his vassals certain services which varied from vassal to vassal. Also, the ownership of a fief was split so that a lord had dominium directum and his tenant in fee had dominium utile (German nutzbares Eigentum). By contrast, an allodiary had a full freehold interest — or dominium plenum (volles Eigentum) — in his allod. This was also reflected in the contemporaneous synonym for an allod, Erbe und Eigen (loosely "inheritance and ownership"). Borough properties were usually allodial in nature. Likewise, ecclesiastical institutions (e.g. abbeys and cathedrals) owned allodial estates.

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