A type of ancestral property or allodium in Scandinavian/Germanic law, held in perpetuity by a family.
From Old Norse 'óðal' or Germanic 'allodium,' meaning land held absolutely without obligation to a feudal superior, distinct from feudal land held from a lord.
The odell system shows that not all medieval Europe was feudal—Scandinavian cultures maintained family ownership of land outside the feudal hierarchy, creating completely different social structures.
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