Allod

In the law of the Middle Ages and early Modern Period, especially within the Holy Roman Empire, an allod (Old Low Franconian allōd ‘fully owned estate’, from all ‘full, entire’ and ōd ‘estate’, Medieval Latin allodium), also allodial land or allodium, is an estate in land over which the allodial landowner (allodiary) had full ownership and right of alienation. Historically holders of allods are a type of sovereign. Allodial land is described as territory or a state where the holder asserted right to the land by the grace of god and the sun. For this reason they were historically equal to other princes regardless of what the size of their territory was or what title they used. This definition is confirmed by the acclaimed Jurist Hugo Grotius, the father of international law and the concept of sovereignty. "holders of allodial land are sovereign" because allodial land is by nature free, hereditary, inherited from their forefathers, sovereign and held by the grace of God. 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 any other sovereigns including 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 in 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.