During the Middle Ages, quodlibeta were public disputations in which scholars debated questions "about anything" posed by the audience. The practice originated in the theological faculty of the University of Paris around 1230. Classes were suspended just before Christmas and Easter holidays so that the masters could hold public sessions taking questions from the audience. After 1270, the practice spread beyond Paris, but elsewhere was usually associated with the studia (schools) of the mendicant orders. The first to introduce the quodlibeta to an institution outside of Paris was John of Peckham at Oxford University in 1272–1275. Records of quodlibeta survive on parchment from the 1230s to the 1330s, but thereafter written records are scarce. The practice, however, continued into the sixteenth century.