The practice of offering a child to the monastery and the service of God was widespread at this time and was known as the oblate system. A number of parents gifted a child to the monastery, often a younger son who would not inherit his father’s lands or as an act of gratitude to God for the safe delivery of their offspring. These oblates received an education in the monastery and when they were seventeen years of age took the monastic vows and were professed as full members of the community. While the practice flourished in the eleventh century it was gradually phased out in the twelfth and explicitly prohibited at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. There were several reasons for this. The presence of these spirited young boys could severely disrupt claustral life and some, who had little interest in a monastic vocation, were troublesome and wayward. But above all it was crucial that the decision to enter the monastery was made by the postulant himself and was carefully considered. Thus the Cistercians stipulated that all recruits must be at least sixteen when they entered the monastery to embark on a one-year novitiate