s to have been that the former were perforce teachers, in which
condition they were obliged to remain during the remainder of the year
in which they incepted and for a twelvemonth afterwards. In the case of
the Non-Regents, who had exceeded this period of probation, lecturing
appears to have been optional. The Regent Master was required to devote
forty days of his novitiate to disputation.

Inception feasts were apt to degenerate into occasions of riot, and in
1432 the following statute was passed with a view to regulating them:

"Whereas at the feasts held at graduations there occur such disorderly
scenes and violence that more annoyance and disgrace than pleasure is
caused to the host himself and all his guests, the University, for the
prevention of such disorders for the future, hereby orders that no one
shall stop the ingress and egress of any master or his servants to or
from the hall or tent or other place where the feast is being held; and
that no one, except the servants of the University, or of the host,
shall enter the said hall, until after the masters, who have been
invited, have entered with their servants; and after they have sat down,
no one shall sit down, except by the appointment of the Chancellor and
in proper order according to rank; and no one shall beat the doors,
tables, or roof, or throw stones or other missiles so as to disturb the
guests, on pain of imprisonment, excommunication, and a fine of twelve
pence."

As these convivialities were so unpleasant, and even dangerous, it may
seem that it would have been the obvious course to prohibit them
altogether, as in the case of determining bachelors; but the University
clung to its feasts, and in 1478 fresh rules were made, this time with
the special aim of bleeding or mulcting the intrusive friars and the
wealthy monks:

"Every mendicant friar shall, on the day of his inception, feast the
Regent Masters according to ancient custom, or forfeit ten marks to the
University; and every such incepting friar must be a regent for
twenty-four months from his inception. And every religious possessing
private property, and not being an abbot or prior or other governor of a
conventual house, the rents of whose society amount to two hundred
pounds yearly, must on the day of inception feast the Regents or pay
twenty pounds to the University in lieu of a feast. And every secular,
who can spend forty pounds a year at the University, must, in default of
such fea