Almshouse

A house for the publicly supported paupers of a city or county. People v. City of New York, 36 Hun (N. Y.) 311. In England an almshouse is not synonymous with a workhouse or poorhouse, being supported by private endowment. ALNAGER (spelled also Vlnager). A public sworn officer of the king, who, by himself or his deputy, looks to the assize of woollen cloth made throughout the land, and to the putting on the seals for that purpose ordained. Statute 17 Rlc. II. c. 2; Cowell; Blount; Termes de la Ley. AL0D, ALODIUM. It is a term used in on another by the proprietor, on condition that the grantee should perform certain services for the grantor, and upon the failure of which the property should revert to the original possessor. See 1 Poll. & Maltl. 45. A kind of tenure in England, not Infrequently mentioned in Domesday Book. It is a French term and, in Continental law, is upposed to feud urn. But no such opposition can be traced in the English common law after the Conquest. All ownership of land in lamland resolved itself into tenure, derived from a royal grant in consideration of service. There was no independent property in English feudal law like the dominium of Roman law. or like the alien of Southern Fiance. Vinogradoff, Engl. Soc. in Eleventh Cent. L':;r,. Maitland (Domesday Book and Beyond lot) takes the same view: "Such sparse evidence as we can obtain from Normandy strengthens our belief that the wide, the almost insuperable gulf that modern theorists have found or set between 'alodial ownership' and 'feudal tenure' was not perceptible in the 11th ( tentury." These writers express the result of modern research on alod in early English institutions. But a different meaning has been given it from Coke down to recent times and, in that sense, has become fixed, as a mode of expression, in our law7. This will appear from the following (from the last edition of this work): An estate held by absolute ownership, without recognizing any superior to whom any duty is due on account thereof. 1 Washb. R. P. (5th ed.) *16. In the1 United States the title to land is essentially allodial, and every tenant in feesimple has an absolute* and unqualified dominion over it; yet in technical language his estate is said to be in fee, a word which implies a feudal relation, although such a relation has ceased to exist in any form, while in several of the states the lands have been declared to be allodial; Wallace v. llarmstad. 44 Pa. 492; Matthews v. Ward, 10 Gill & J. (Md.) 443; but see Com. v. Alger, 7 <"ush. (Mass.) 92; 2 Sharsw. Bla. Com. 77, n.; I Washb. R. P. (5th ed.) *41, *42; Sharsw. Lect. on Feudal Law Q870). In some states, the statutes have declared lands to be allodial. See also Barker v. Dayton, 28 Wis. 367. In England there is no allodial tenure, for all land is held mediately or immediately of the king; but the wrords tenancy in fee-simple are there properly used to express the most absolute dominion which a man can have over his property; 3 Kent Com. *487; Cruise, Trelim. Dis. c. 1, § 13; 2 Bla. Com. 105.