ABSTRACT
The easiest way of understanding the nature of the trust is to understand some of the legends about the way in which the trust came to exist in English law. The story was told to me in the following way, and I understood what was going on immediately. So, excuse me if I tell the story to you in the same way. In the 12th century, English and other European noblemen (‘the knights’) travelled to the Middle East to fight wars which are still known somewhat distastefully among historians as ‘the crusades’. Typically, they spent many years in the Middle East and learned many things. It is from the Middle East that we in the West acquired our concepts of arithmetic and civilised ideas like hospitals. Many of these knights were some of the most significant landowners in England at the time. While they were to be absent from 25the country for several years, the knights had to transfer the common law ownership rights associated with their land to someone else (their ‘trustee’) to look after the property for them, to raise rents, and so forth. When the knight eventually returned from the Middle East it seems that many of these trustees argued that the land belonged to them at common law and they were not going to transfer the property back to the returning knight. The common law courts could do nothing to help the knight.
