"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 feast, forfeit twenty marks; and, if he can afford to spend one hundred pounds, must forfeit twenty pounds." Brief reference must here be made to the relations between the mendicant orders and the University in general, if only because the memory of the former was so perpetuated, long after the disappearance of the fraternities, in the famous term "Austins." Those relations were, for a considerable time, the reverse of friendly. The friars complained that degrees in theology were refused them; the University accused the friars, among other enormities, of "stealing children." To prevent such abduction, in 1358 the following statute was passed: "The nobles and people generally are afraid to send their sons to Oxford, lest they should be induced by the mendicant friars to join their order; it is therefore hereby enacted that if any mendicant friar shall induce or cause to be induced any member of the University under eighteen years of age to join the said friars, or shall in any way assist in the abduction, no graduate belonging to the cloister or society of which such friar is a member shall be permitted to give or attend lectures in Oxford or elsewhere for a year ensuing." This enactment was repealed eight years later; but in 1414, when forty-six articles were drawn up by the University of Oxford, addressed to the Council of Constance, it was urgently represented that the friars should be restrained from granting absolution on easy terms, from _stealing children_, and from begging for alms in the house of God. Their adversaries also warmly denounced the nefarious conduct of "wax-doctors," or ignorant friars, in seeking to obtain graces for degrees by means of letters from influential persons; and in 1358 their indignation bore fruit in a very stringent statute bearing upon the subject.