Origins of the Trust

Frederic W. Maitland, the pre-eminent Anglo-American legal historian, said that the trust "e;perhaps forms the most distinctive achievement of English lawyers. It seems to us almost essential to civilization and yet there is nothing quite like it in foreign law."e; This book is an updating of Maitland's work, first looking at his suggested "e;foreign"e; sources for the trust-Roman law, German (Salic) law , and Franciscan "e;law"e;. It then considers a source Maitland did not - Islamic law - and finds that the Islamic waqf is not only "e;quite like"e; the trust, but predated it by at least five hundred years.