Town-and-gown Relations in The Post-medieval and Modern Eras
Over the centuries, the relationship between town and gown has remained ambivalent. There have been points where a university in crisis has been rescued by the urban dynamics surrounding it, while at other times, urban developments have threatened to undermine the stability of the university. Conversely, there have been occasions where the university provided a focus and coherence for the cultural life of the city; though at other times, it has withdrawn into itself and undermined urban culture.
Despite generally improved relations between town and gown in the post-medieval era, disputes and conflicts were a recurring phenomenon. A brief chronicle of incidents involving Yale College students and residents of New Haven, Connecticut, illustrates the continuing strain upon town-gown relations. The nature of these disputes ranged from theological to martial.
Founded in 1701, Yale moved to New Haven in 1716. In 1753, President Thomas Clap began holding separate Sunday worship services for students in the college instead of at First Church, because he felt that the minister, Joseph Noyes, was theologically suspect. (Yale was founded by Congregational ministers but currently has no religious affiliation.) This move alienated the Connecticut clergy and marked the beginning of the Yale undergraduates' ambivalent relationship with the town of New Haven.
If there is one constant in town-gown relations over the centuries, it can be summed up with the maxim, "Students will be students." College students, past and present, have a good deal of free time notwithstanding their obligations to study. How they use this time is often perceived as troubling or disruptive by non-students.
Over the course of a century, New Haven witnessed a series of violent confrontations between students and "townies" that recall the confrontations in the medieval university towns. In 1806, a full-scale riot — the first of many — fought with fists, clubs, and knives, broke out between off-duty sailors and Yale students. In 1841, a clash with city firefighters took place. After Yale students attacked the firehouse and destroyed equipment, a town mob threatened to burn the college. Military companies had to be called in to keep the peace. Then in 1854, bricks and bullets flew after a confrontation between students and townspeople at a New Haven theater. When the leader of the town group was stabbed, students retreated to the college. The locals actually brought in two militia cannons and aimed them at the college but were stopped by constables before they could fire them.
Things were relatively quiet until 1919, when returning local servicemen, angry over perceived insults from Yale students, attacked the Old Campus. Finding the gates locked, they broke hundreds of windows and moved on to theaters and restaurants in the town, assaulting any students they could find. In 1959, a student snowball fight on city streets got out of hand and resulted in arrests by New Haven police. Students then pelted police officers with snowballs during the St. Patrick's Day parade. The so-called "snowball riot" attracted national media attention — a preview of the tumultuous 1960s.
A wave of student unrest took place in North America and Europe during the 1960s, from Paris to Mexico City to California. The Free Speech Movement, centered at the University of California, Berkeley, has often been cited as the starting point of the unrest. The U.S. student movement was ostensibly about demands for more freedom and a share in decision making on campus, but it was stoked by two broader issues — civil rights for African Americans and protest of the Vietnam War. The most violent incidents occurred when National Guard troops fired upon and killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio and when police fired on dormitories at Jackson State University in Mississippi in spring, 1970, killing two bystanders (See links below).
The town-and-gown divide is visible in numerous older universities globally. In the university town of Uppsala in Sweden, clergy, royalty and academia historically reside on the western shore of the river Fyris, somewhat separated from the rest of the city, and the ensemble of cathedral (consecrated 1435), castle and university (founded in 1477) has remained mostly undisturbed until today. Since the Middle Ages, commercial activity has been geographically centered on the eastern side of the river.
Many of the medieval traditions have carried into the modern era, and universities retain certain historical privileges. Two examples are illustrative: 1) Students in some universities were compelled to wear gowns up to the 1960s in order to make them identifiable to the university authorities. 2) Under the Russian tsars, police were forbidden to enter the universities, a tradition that was respected during the Russian repression of Prague in the summer of 1968.
Read more about this topic: Town And Gown
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