Reservation (Lat. reservare, to keep back), the act or action of keeping back or withholding something. There are some technical uses of the term. In English law "reservation" is used of the retention by the vendor or lessor, in a conveyance or lease, of some right or interest, which without such reservation would have passed to the purchaser or tenant; such "reservations" usually are concerned with rights of way or other easements or sporting rights. In ecclesiastical usage, the term is applied to the practice of preserving unconsumed a portion of the consecrated elements after the celebration of the Eucharist. For the history of this practice and its usage in the Roman, Greek and English churches, see Eucharist,§ Reservation of the Eucharist. In the Roman Church, where the pope retains for himself the right to nominate to certain benefices, that action is termed, technically, "reservation." When in making a statement, taking an oath, &c., a person qualifies that statement in his mind, or withholds some fact, word or expression which, if expressed, would materially alter the effect of his statement or oath, such qualification is termed a "mental reservation," or, in the technical language of casuistry, "mental restriction" (see Liguori). The system of providing special tracts of land exclusively for the tribes of American Indians, adopted in the United States of America and in Canada, is known as the Reservation system, and such tracts are styled Indian Reservations.
(See UNITED STATES and CANADA.)
