s and of books, mentioned in some of the
statutes we have quoted, is frequently forbidden. At Orleans the
statutes prohibit leading the bajan "ut ovis ad occisionem" to a
tavern to be forced to spend his money, and denounce the custom as
provocative of "ebrietates, turpiloquia, lascivias, pernoctationes"
and other evils. They also forbid the practice of compelling him to
celebrate the jocund advent by seizing books, one or more, or by
exacting anything from him. There are numerous other references in
French statutes, some of which denounce the _bejaunia_ as sufficiently
expensive to deter men from coming to the University, but details are
disappointingly few.

The initiation of the bajan attained its highest development in the
German universities, where we find the French conception of the bajan,
as afflicted with mortal sin and requiring purification, combined (p. 116)
with the characteristic German conception of him as a wild animal who
has to be tamed. His reformation was accomplished by the use of
planes, augers, saws, pincers and other instruments suitable for
removing horns, tusks and claws from a dangerous animal, and the
Deposition, or "modus deponendi cornua iis qui in numerum studiosorum
co-optari volunt," became a recognised University ceremony. The
statutes attempt to check it, _e.g._ at Vienna the bajan is not to be
oppressed with undue exactions or otherwise molested or insulted, and
at Leipsic the insults are not to take the form of blows, stones, or
water. At Prague, "those who lay down (deponent) their rustic manners
and ignorance are to be treated more mildly and moderately than in
recent years (1544), and their lips or other parts of their bodies are
not to be defiled with filth or putrid and impure substances which
produce sickness." But the Prague statute contemplates a Deposition
ceremony in which the freshman is assumed to be a goat with horns to
be removed. A black-letter handbook or manual for German students,
consisting of dialogues or conversational Latin (much on the principle
of tourists' conversational dictionaries), opens with a description of
the preparations for a Deposition. The book, which has been reprinted
in Zarncke's _Die Deutschen Universitaeten im Mittelalter_, is (p. 117)
(from internal evidence) a picture of life at Heidelberg, but it is
written in general terms.

The new-comer seeks out a master that he may be entered on the roll of
the University and be absolved from