A town and Gown affray in these days is not usually regarded as serious. In fact such conflicts have almost ceased to be, the gown confining its attention to the annoying of college authorities rather than attacking town. In the Middle Ages, however, there occurred bitter and bloody fights between students and citizens. Anthony Wood tells of many killed and wounded in these affairs. After the battles, peace was secured, for the time being, by the paying of compensation by the town, because the gown, being well up in logic and law, could always prove that it was right and the town hopelessly wrong.

A great affray in Paris, early in the year 1229, led to disastrous results. The fight began in wine and ended in blood, which was the ordinary procedure; what was extraordinary about this particular riot was that when the citizens were tired of being knocked on the head, the civic authorities sent out the Civic Guard, and Queen Blanche ordered her archers to quell the tumult. These two bodies of disciplined soldiery shot down the students without mercy. They, badly beaten and resentful, clamoured for redress. The Masters— Paris University was a guild of Masters—took up the quarrel. The Queen refused them satisfaction, and in a short time a deadlock was reached; then the University had recourse to a very modern weapon of retaliation—they declared a strike. If they expected by this means to achieve their ends they were disappointed, since town and court stood firm.