The Germanic Origin

The chapter deals with the issue of the Germanic origin of the common law trust. It discusses the possible link between the trust and the institution of Salman that dates to the fifth-century Germanic legal code Lex Salica. Moreover, the chapter focuses on the technique of the affatomie/acfatmire that gradually developed into the Vergabung von Todes wegen. Within the framework of the latter, a transferee was obliged to pass transferred assets on to a beneficiary. At the end of the chapter, the possible link between the acfatmire and the use/trust is discussed.