Trust today means having a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. The word derives from 13^th century Old Norse, traust, “to rely on, make strong and safe.” Over time, the nuance of the definition changed. By the 15th century, it meant “to entertain a lively hope” before shifting back over the years to that of its original meaning, to believe in firmly.

From the subtle swing back and forth in the definition, one might conclude that the overall confidence in what one trusted eroded from the 1300s through the 1400s before being restored.

That is not so hard to believe when one considers what happened during that time.

To name a few happenings during the 1300s:

The Black Death.
The Hundred Years War between France and Britain.
Tamerlane (the sword of Islam) subdued the Middle East and much of India.
Old World temperatures plummeted, and the Little Ice Age began.

During the 1400s, some of the major events were:

The War of the Roses, or the civil war in England between the houses of Lancaster and York.
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and the extinguishing of the Roman Empire.
The invention of the Gutenberg printing press and the printing of bibles in languages other than Greek, Hebrew, or Latin
Joan of Arc went up in a puff of smoke.
The New World was discovered.

Given all the above, is it any wonder that trust took a beating?

In Eye of the Moon, one of the characters tells Percy, the protagonist:

“Trust is developed over time. Real trust is to trust in spite of all indications to the contrary. After all, isn’t that the definition of trust?”

But what if trust is lost? How is that “trust” to be restored, and how did that restoration take place after the year 1500, as reflected in the changed definition of the word, trust back to its original meaning?

For that, a possible explanation comes from a seemingly unlikely source: the ius gentium, “the Law of Nations,” and the legal legacy passed down to us from the late Roman Empire. The Law of Nations was defined by the jurist (known only as Gaius) as the law that “natural reason has established among all mankind.” To the pragmatic Romans, the most challenging task was to rule the many kingdoms they conquered efficiently, expeditiously, and easily when each province had different customs and languages. From their attempt to codify and isolate the natural laws common to every nation, they created the subject called “natural” philosophy, or the study of that which is common to all. Much later, natural philosophy and the search for the commonalities beneath all things evolved into what we now call Science.

In short, trust was restored through the enforcement of guarantees as provided for in the Roman legal system, as it spread and became established throughout Europe during the centuries that followed.

What about trust between individuals? Trust can be restored in a similar fashion through legal guarantees of performance established between parties using contracts. What the terms are and what those terms entail are arranged, hammered out, and agreed upon by those involved.

The loss of trust is grievous. If left to fester, it can do great harm. The good news is that trust can be restored. And given that Easter is upon us, now might be an excellent time to start.