Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Same as
udal . - noun An East Indian climbing shrub, Sarcostigma Kleinii, bearing bright orange-red drupes.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Law) Among the early and medieval Teutonic peoples, esp. Scandinavians, the heritable land held by the various odalmen constituting a family or kindred of freeborn tribesmen; also, the ownership of such land. The odal was subject only to certain rights of the family or kindred in restricting the freedom of transfer or sale and giving certain rights of redemption in case of change of ownership by inheritance, etc., and perhaps to other rights of the kindred or the tribe. Survivals of the early odal estates and tenure exist in Orkney and Shetland, where it is usually called by the variant form
udal . - adjective (Law) Noting, or pert. to, odal land or ownership.
Etymologies
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Examples
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On their failure to find the money, Torf-Einar paid it himself, taking in return from the people their odal lands, [18] which were lost to their families until Jarl Sigurd Hlodverson temporarily restored them as a recompense for their assistance in the battle fought by him between
Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time or, The Jarls and The Freskyns James Gray
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He made new laws, took from the peasants their odal estates, and declared all land to be the king's property.
Olaf the Glorious A Story of the Viking Age Robert Leighton
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Whether it was the Orkney jarls or their superiors, the kings of Norway, who owned them in the meantime, the odal lands were finally sold back to those entitled to them by descent by Jarl Ragnvald Kol's son about 1137, in order to raise money for the completion of Kirkwall Cathedral.
Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time or, The Jarls and The Freskyns James Gray
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At last they stood defined, the first of the feudal lords and the last of the odal-born men.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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Proudly as became an odal-woman, she followed the page when he came at last to call her to the royal presence.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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Always I have thought it shame that my kinsman's odal should lie in English hands, and now I have made up my mind to put an end to it.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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I will make a condition with Edmund that the Etheling's odal shall not be included in the land which is peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking the truce.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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"Yet for the good of the realm, I must lay on your odal one burden, Frode's daughter."
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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The odal-born men could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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What service I pay to you, I pay as an odal-man to the State for which you stand.
The Ward of King Canute; a romance of the Danish conquest 1893
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