Single things can be left in trust as well as inheritances; land, for instance, slaves, clothing, gold, silver, and coined money; and the trust may be imposed either on an heir or on a legatee, although a legatee cannot be charged with a legacy.
1 Not only the testator's property, but that of an heir, or legatee, or person already benefited by a trust, or any one else may be given by a trust. Thus a legatee, or a person in whose favour the testator has already created a trust, may be asked to transfer either a thing left to him, or any other thing belonging to himself or a stranger, provided always that he is not charged with a trust to transfer more than he takes by the will, for in respect of such excess the trust would be void. When a person is charged by a trust to transfer a thing belonging to some one else, he must either purchase and deliver it, or pay its value.
2 Liberty can be left to a slave by a trust charging an heir, legatee, or other person already benefited by a trust of the testator's, with his manumission, and it makes no difference whether the slave is the property of the testator, of the heir, of the legatee or of a stranger: for a stranger's slave must be purchased and manumitted; and on his master's refusal to sell (which refusal is allowable only if the master has taken nothing under the will) the trust to enfranchise the slave is not extinguished, as though its execution had become impossible, but its execution is merely postponed; because it may become possible to free him at some future time, whenever an opportunity of purchasing him presents itself. A trust of manumission makes the slave the freedman, not of the testator, though he may have been his owner, but of the manumitter, whereas a direct bequest of liberty makes a slave the freedman of the testator, whence too he is called 'orcinus.' But a direct bequest of liberty can be made only to a slave who belongs to the testator both at the time of making his will and at that of his decease; and by a direct bequest of liberty is to be understood the case where the testator desires him to become free in virtue, as it were, of his own testament alone, and so does not ask some one else to manumit him.
3 The words most commonly used to create a trust are I beg, I. request, I wish, I commission, I trust to your good faith; and they are just as binding when used separately as when united.
TITLE XXV. OF CODICILS
It is certain that codicils were not in use before the time of Augustus, for Lucius Lentulus, who was also the originator of trusts, was the first to introduce them, in the following manner. Being on the point of death in Africa, he executed codicils, confirmed by his will, by which he begged Augustus to do something for him as a trust; and on the Emperor's fulfilling his wishes, other persons followed the precedent and discharged trusts created in this manner, and the daughter of Lentulus paid legacies which could not have been legally claimed from her. It is said that Augustus called a council of certain jurists, among them Trebatius, who at that time enjoyed the highest reputation, and asked them whether the new usage could be sanctioned, or did not rather run counter to the received principles of law, and that Trebatius recommended their admission, remarking 'how convenient and even necessary the practice was to citizens,' owing to the length of the journeys which were taken in those early days, and upon which a man might often be able to make codicils when he could not make a will. And subsequently, after codicils had been made by Labeo, nobody doubted their complete validity.
1 Not only can codicils be made after a will, but a man dying intestate can create trusts by codicils, though Papinian says that codicils executed before a will are invalid unless confirmed by a later express declaration that they shall be binding. But a rescript of the Emperors Severus and Antoninus decides that the performance of a trust imposed by codicils written before a will may in any case be demanded, if it appears that the testator had not abandoned the intention expressed in them.
2 An inheritance can neither be given nor taken away by codicils, nor, accordingly, can a child be disinherited in this way: for, if it were otherwise, the law of wills and of codicils would be confounded. By this it is meant that an inheritance cannot directly be given or taken away by codicils; for indirectly, by means of a trust, one can very well be given in this manner. Nor again can a condition be imposed on an instituted heir, or a direct substitution be effected, by codicils.
3 A man can make any number of codicils, and no solemnities are required for their execution.