TRUST (ME. trust, twist, trist, tryst, Goth. trausti, covenant, treaty, 011G. trust, Ger. frost, trust, protection; connected with Eng. true, OPruss. dra(cis, faith, druwit, to believe). In its broadest sense, a legal relation existing be tween two or more persons such that a court of equity will compel one to hold property or an in terest in property of which he has the legal title for the benefit of the other or others. The per son so holding the legal interest in property is called the trustee, and the person entitled to the benefit, or, as is sometimes said, the 'equitable in terest' in the property, is known as the beneficiary of the trust, or the ee.stui que trust. The jideiCommissunt (q.v.) of the Roman law, which was a form of trust created by will, has been sup posed to have been the model of uses, the early form of trust introduced into England by the clergy as a means of avoiding the operation of the mortmain statutes (q.v.). Another analogy has been found in the Roman idea of usufruetus, or the right of temporary enjoyment of a thing as distinct from the legal ownership of it. The analogy, however, between uses or trusts on the one hand, and the fideirommissum and the usafnectus on the other, fails in many impor tant particulars, and it seems most probable that the use is an independent product of English jurisprudence, although its development was greatly aided by the doctrines of the Roman law with which the clergy were familiar.
The practice of conveying land to uses, that is, the granting of land to one to be held by him for the benefit of another, seems to have existed as early as the reign of Edward III. Such grants were made by debtors to avoid levy of execution by creditors, and by disseisors to avoid the claims of rightful owners of the land. By thus convey ing land to another to the use of the grantor. the grantor retained all the benefits of a purely legal ownership, while lie divested himself of all its burdens. First, the obligation of the grantee to uses to hold the land to the use of his grantor seems to have had only a moral or religious sanc tion, and, resting as it did upon conscience and good faith, was a proper subject for the then rapidly growing jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery. (See CnaNcERY.) There is some evidence that the Chancellor took jurisdiction to enforce such obligations upon equitable grounds in the reign of Richard II.. and the jurisdiction became well established during the reigns of Ibmry VI. and Edward IV. By virtue of the Chancellor's power to command things to be done, he could compel the feoffee to uses to carry out fully the equitable obligation imposed upon him by the grantor, and in the reign of Edward IV.
we find the Chancellor imposing the same obliga tions upon those who acquired the legal title from the feoffee by inheritance or by pur chase, if the purchaser had notice of the claim of the cestui que use. Equity also came to recog nize the right or interest of the cestui as analo gous to a legal interest in the land which might be freely conveyed or assigned and might be inherited. Thus, in addition to the power of the legal owner of land to divest himself of the burdens of legal ownership by the conveyance to uses, he was also enabled to grant the use in ways not permitted at COMMOD law, as. for ex ample, the grant of the use of property by the husband to his wife.
At this period (Edward IV.) there were three recognized methods of creating a use or trust in lands: (1) By froffment or transmutation of pos session, as already mentioned. Analogous to this was the practice of enfeoffing another to the uses to be declared in the feoffor's will. Equity in such cases compelled the feoffor or trustee to hold the property for the benefit of those named in the feotfor's will. (2) By bargain• and sale. When the legal owner entered into a legal contract for the sale of land in which the buyer paid, or agreed to pay, the vendee for the land, a court of equity treated the vendor as a trustee and compelled him to hold the land for the use or benefit of the buyer. (3) By corenant to stand seized. This was a covenant by which the legal owner of land covenanted to stand seized or possessed of the land to the use or for the benefit of a blood relative. Courts of equity treated such an instrument as a valid declaration of trust, enforceable against the covenantor for the benefit of the relative named in the covenant.
The use of the trust as a means of evading the obligation of legal ownership led to the enact ment of the Statute of Uses. 27 Henry VIII., cap. 10. Its purpose was to abolish the practice of creating uses or trusts of land, and its effect was to declare that, by operation of law, the legal title should be deemed vested in the benefi ciary or cestui (pre use. Upon its face the statute was effectual to serve this purpose, and its im mediate effect was to permit the creation and transfer of legal estates in the same manner as uses or equitable estates had been created and transferred before the statute, and incidentally to permit the conveyance of a legal interest in land by mere deed of bargain and sale without feoffinent as at common law. (See CONVEY