The right to allodial land then and now

The right to allodial land has very deep roots in Norway. When the old provincial laws were written down, probably at the end of the 11th century, a peasant could obtain the right to allodial land when a farm had passed from father to son for six generations. The Laws of the Land changed this, stipulating that a farm had to be in a family’s possession for 60 years or four generations. This meant a strengthening of peasants’ rights and a restriction to the eagerness of the Church and nobility to acquire more and more land. The Norwegian right to allodial land has survived to this day despite several attempts to abolish it. For this, Norwegians can thank the constitution of 1814, whose section 117 states that “Allodial right and the right of primogeniture shall not be abolished”. In 1974, Parliament passed a new allodial land law. Firstborns now had the right to allodial land regardless of gender. It was also stipulated that an agricultural property has to be at least 35 acres of cultivated land or 500 acres of productive forest to be considered allodial land, and that it has to be occupied and worked. Today, one obtains the right to allodial land after 20 years of ownership. As recently as 2018, the conservative and liberal parties proposed removing section 117 from the constitution. The proposition was not passed, and the right to allodial land remains part of the Norwegian Constitution. In other European countries, similar rights have been abolished, making the right to allodial land a uniquely Norwegian phenomenon.