Dominium directum et utile is a legal Latin term used to refer to the two separate estates in land that a fief was split into under feudal land tenure. This system is more commonly known as duplex dominium or double domain. This can be contrasted with the modern allodial system, in which ownership is full and not divided into separate estates—a situation known as dominium plenum "full ownership".

Dominium directum et utile is composed of:

These terms are built from Latin dominium ‘ownership’, directum ‘direct’, and utile ‘useful’.

Property is defined to mean a thing and those things that are naturally attached to it. For land, that would include buildings, trees, underground resources, etc. It would not include "movable" property, such as wagons or livestock.

The "lord" holding dominium directum may be anyone with sovereign power over the asset, such as a monarch or other nobility, or an established Church.