m to expend on
feasting the money on which they intended to live. Insults, blows, and
other dangers are the general results of the system, and the
University orders that no one shall exact money or anything else from
bajans except the "socii" with whom they live, and they may take only
a free-will offering. Bajans are to reveal, under heavy penalties, the
names of any who molest them by word or blow, threatening them or
offering them insults. Offenders are to be handed over to the Provost
of Paris to be punished, but not "ad penam sanguinis."

A fifteenth-century code of statutes of the Cistercian College at
Paris (generally much less stern than one would expect in a house of
that severe Order) refers to the traditions that had grown up in the
College about the initiation of a bajan, and to the "insolentias et
enormitates multas" which accompanied their observance. The whole of
the ceremonies of initiation are therefore forbidden--"omnes
receptiones noviter venientium, quos voluntaria opinione Bejanos
nuncupare solent, cum suis consequentiis, necnon bajulationes,
fibrationes ... tam in capitulo, in dormitorio, in parvis scholis, in
jardinis, quam ubiubi, et tam de die quam de nocte." With these evil
customs is to go the very name of the Abbas Bejanorum, and all (p. 111)
"vasa, munimenta, et instrumenta" used for these ceremonies are to be
given up. New-comers in future are to be entrusted to the care of
discreet seniors, who will instruct them in the honourable customs of
the College, report their shortcomings in church, in walks, and in
games, supervise their expenditure, and prevent their being overcharged
"pro jocundo adventu" or in other ways. So strong was the tradition of
the "jocund advent" that it thus finds a place even in a reformer's
constitution, and we find references to it elsewhere in the statutes
of Parisian colleges. An undated early code, drawn up for the
Treasurer's College, orders the members to fulfil honestly their
jocund advent in accordance with the advice of their fellow students.
At Cornouaille, the new-comer is instructed to pay for his jocund
advent neither too meanly nor with burdensome extravagance, but in
accordance with his rank and his means. At the College of Dainville
the expense of the bajan-hood is limited to a quart of good wine
("ultra unum sextarium vini non mediocris suis sociis pro novo sub
ingressu seu bejanno non solvat"). At the College of Cambray, a bursar
is to pay twe