Allodial land, or allodium, is literally land which has no lord. The holder of allodial land would owe no obligations, as owner of the land, to anyone else.

Some systems of law, for example English law, do not permit any land to be allodial, all land ultimately being held from the Crown, whereas others, such as Scottish law do permit this.

Allodial property rights were claimed by the people of colonial America after the Declaration of Independence and recognized by the States after the Revolutionary War. Once this occurred there was no real distinction between land held in fee simple and allodial land, and the two terms are used interchangeably in legal systems which have abolished the notion of a Lord. In these situations, Allodial land ownership may be contrasted to feudal land ownership.

See also

• Manorialism
• Land tenure
• Fee simple