when roads were bad and few, and communication difficult, every township had its own jurisdiction, some part of which still survives. These local courts could not sit without a certain number of sokemen. There was the Court Baron, presided over by the Town Reeve, elected by the township, and the Court Leet, or local criminal court. In both these courts, questions of book-land could be decided.
Note.—Spelman says, under the word Allodium,[1] that it is prædium liberum nulli servituti obnoxium— free land, subject to no service; the opposite to feudum, which is always subject to some service. A feud cannot be handed down even to a son or nephew without consent of the lord; but allodium can run over the whole line of heirs, and be given or sold to anyone—even though the lord should demur. On this account, it is called allodium by the Saxons, from leod; for a means to or for, and leod, the people; and as a feudum is the property of a lord, so is an allodium the property of the people. In the Laws of Canute, "allodial" is opposed to "feudal," and is called "book-land," which in the Laws of Alfred is hereditary land, and seems to be the same as what is now fee-simple. Allodium is also called free land, which a man holds of none, nor acknowledges any in another place or jurisdiction—for land is bound to a lord as to protection and jurisdiction. See Spelman, Glossarium.
CHAPTER II.—UNDER THE NORMANS
THE word "feudal" is probably derived from the
word "fee" or stipend. But if it is derived, as some think, from the Old French for "faith," its practical meaning is the same—it means property held in return for a promise of something—rent, or personal service, or both.[2]
- ↑ Allodium. In Swedish, udalgodo; Ger. allodium; Fr. alleu, or franc-alleu'; Low Latin, allodium. A word of uncertain etymology. According to Pontoppidan, it comes from all (odh=all property, whole estate, or property in the highest sense of the word). Odh is connected with udal; Danish, odel; Orcadian, udal'; all having the same signification as the word allodial.—Lloyd's Encyclopedic Dictionary.
- ↑ "The grand and fundamental maxim of all feudal tenures is this, that all lands were originally granted out by the sovereign, and are therefore holden, mediately or immediately, by the Crown."—Blackstone's "Commentaries," II. c. 4.
Fee is the Old French, Fe ; Latin, Fides; and a fee, anything granted by one and held by another, upon promise of fealty or fidelity.—Richardson's Dict. sub. voce.
