left for the use of a third party, who did not owe those incidents to the lord. Any such "in trust" legal status was partly to circumvent the Statute of Mortmain, which sought to end the relatively common practice of leaving real property (land, milling rights, markets, fisheries) to the Church (meaning any of its branches), on the tenant's death, so as to avoid dues (inquisitions post mortem) which could, unpaid, lead to reversion/repossession of the tenancy to the landlord. Two concepts explain the origin of ("dead hand"). First, it can be characterised as referring to the deceased donor and former owner, and their desire, in their Will that the Church inherit. Second, as the Church (a nonnatural person recognized by the common law) never dies, the land never leaves its "dead hand". Before this act, vast tracts land were left directly to the Church, which never relinquished it. Other land could be transferred to anyone, inherited only through a family line (sometimes only the male line), or revert to an over-lord or the Crown upon the death of the tenant. Church land had been a source of contention between the Crown and the Church for centuries. Creating a trust, again, allowed branches of the Church to farm the land beneficially, while the legal title (meaning right to transfer if needed and gain or lose in capital) belonged to a corporation of lawyers or other entities, with discretion to benefit the Church, so preserving the pre-Statute practice. History in German and Roman law It is the opinion of William Holdsworth quoting such scholars as Gilbert, Sanders, Blackstone, Spence and Digby, that in English law had a Roman origin. An analogy exists between uses and a usufructus (usufruct) or the bequest of a fideicommissum. These all tended to create a feoffement to one person for the use of another. Gilbert writes (also seen in Blackstone) "that they answer more to the fideicommissum than the usufructus of the civil law". These were transplanted into England from Roman civil law about the close of the reign of Edward III of England by means of foreign ecclesiastics who introduced them to evade the Statute of Mortmain. Others argue that the comparison between and Roman law is merely superficial. The transfer of land for the use of one person for certain purposes to be carried out either in the lifetime or after the death of