A Donation, when referred to in canon law in the Roman Catholic Church, is defined as the gratuitous transfer to another of some right or thing. When it consists in placing in the hands of the donee some movable object it is known as a gift of hand (donum manuale, an offering or oblatio, an alms). Properly speaking, however, it is a voluntary contract, verbal or written, by which the donor expressly agrees to give, without consideration, something to the donee, and the latter in an equally express manner accepts the gift. In Roman law and in some modern codes this contract carries with it only the obligation of transferring the ownership of the thing in question; actual ownership is obtained only by the real traditio or handing over of the thing itself, or by the observation of certain jur