Yet the interest lies in seeing the distinction between direct and precatory words being used as a test.

On the other hand, the post-classical jurisprudential sources cited to refer to precatory words.

IP, however, partially retains this approach but superimposes on it a distinction between direct and precatory words.

The notion of precatory words (verba precativa or precaria ) has a history not altogether straightforward.

Here, then, the doubts about precatory words are reasonable doubts whether they clearly express an intention on the part of a testator.

How does this square with another proposition that is sometimes put forward, that in Roman law trusts had to be set up in precatory words?

Historically, precatory words such as "it is hoped" and "it is desired" were held to be valid.

The issue here is purely logical: what is the purpose of the category 'precatory words' if the choice of words for trusts was open?

Precatory words were one, but only one, category of words which would be accepted as setting up trusts if they made the testator's intention clear.

There is a presumption against intestacy, against double portions, against constructing merely precatory words to import a trust, etc.

Pseudo-Ulpian suggests that the distinction between civil-law dispositions and trusts is that the former are in direct and the latter in precatory words.

The second is the issue of precatory words (verba precativa ) in setting up trusts, and is more contentious because it is not commonly accepted that it is a post-classical issue at all.

The use in the emperor's reply of the expression verba precaria is revealing, for it shows already a tendency to treat precatory words as characteristic of trusts, as something which sets them apart from the dispositions of the civil law.

Whenever a trust is left, it can be left in precatory words so that someone may ask, enjoin, seek, or hope that the trustee should cause what has been entrusted to him to pass to the person the testator wished, just as he enjoined.