Had to look that word up! Beyond my knowledge I’m afraid, but it looks like yes it was (via wikipedia):
In France, while allodial title existed before the French Revolution, it was rare and limited to ecclesiastical properties and property that had fallen out of feudal ownership.
All I know is that Church land was a huge part of both the English reformation and the French revolution. In the former, Henry VIII was eager to divorce his wife, but also to confiscate papal land to expand his tax base. And the French republic fought to seize the land too (and remove religion to a certain extent)… It was really nasty and lots of clergy were massacred. Many common French people were still Catholic so this kind of eroded support for many of the revolutionaries. Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution - Wikipedia
JK might be a milquetoast neoliberal with questionable motifs (the bankers in your books are literally evil hook nosed goblins? really lady?!) but to her credit she at least pays her taxes:
I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.
A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.
And I’m sure it’s still not enough for them. More power, wealth and land than they could ever make use of in dozens of lifetimes and they want more, more, more. I guess they’re going for the high score or something?
Hmm. This article says that in England the Church tool held land from the Crown (directly or indirectly) through a form of tenure called frankalmoin:
But as the Church owed no fealty nor service (except prayers for the donor, his ancestors and his heirs) under this tenure, and the granted land was subject to ecclesiastical rather than secular jurisdiction, it may be a distinction without much of a difference.
Noentheless, it looks like @anotherone’s point stands: since the Conquest, all land in England, including church land, has technically belonged to the Crown, all other landholders being legally tenants.
Thanks for your additional research. It’s more complicated than I thought, but I think my point still stands.
Yes, and this is where defacto power vs deeds and titles come into play… Obviously as you’ve shown, at least on paper, land rights flowed from the Crown. But in practice, the crown did not control those lands.
From the article you link:
Not only was secular service not due but in the 12th and 13th centuries jurisdiction over land so held belonged to the ecclesiastical courts, and was thus immune from royal jurisdiction.
Power was a complex web from the dark & middle ages on… You have the pope crowning kings, arranging marriages, occasionally leading an army, siblings deposing one another, multiple claimants, multiple popes and so on. It’s all about what faction could bring more power to bear. And until the reformation, the Crown did not typically take on the Church since that could invite a foreign army (empowered by the church) to invade. If the Church was truly there only as a tenant, the crown should have been able to simply kick them out without use of force… But this was not the case, and there was much bloodshed as a result.
Like you say, it’s a difference without distinction and gets in to the philosophy of ownership… Who can be said to “own” anything? Obviously, the divine right of kings is complete bullshit. But what’s for sure is that in feudal times, ordinary people owned fuck all.
