express authorization by civil or ecclesiastical powers, but the
privilege was distinctly conferred by a bull of Pope Gregory IX for
Paris in 1231:

And if, perchance, the assessment [right to fix the prices] of
lodgings is taken from you, or anything else is lacking, or an
injury or outrageous damage, such as death or the mutilation of a
limb, is inflicted on one of you, unless through a suitable
admonition satisfaction is rendered within fifteen days, you may
suspend your lectures until you have received full satisfaction.
And if it happens that any one of you is unlawfully imprisoned,
unless the injury ceases on a remonstrance from you, you may, if
you judge it expedient, suspend your lectures immediately.[45]

The events leading up to the granting of this privilege are worth
recounting as an illustration of the way in which such rights were
frequently secured. The "clerks" referred to were of course scholars.
The cessation of lectures was followed by a migration to other cities
until satisfaction was given. The exact nature of the satisfaction given
by the king is not known. One important result, however, was the great
charter of papal privileges just referred to,--"the _Magna Charta_ of
the University" of Paris.[46]

"Concerning the discord that arose at Paris between the whole body of
clergy and the citizens, and concerning the withdrawal of the clergy"
[1229]:

In that same year, on the second and third holidays before Ash
Wednesday, days when the clerks of the university have leisure
for games, certain of the clerks went out of the City of Paris in
the direction of Saint Marcel's, for a change of air and to have
contests in their usual games. When they had reached the place
and had amused themselves for some time in carrying on their
games, they chanced to find in a certain tavern some excellent
wine, pleasant to drink. And then, in the dispute that arose
between the clerks who were drinking and the shop keepers, they
began to exchange blows and to tear each other's hair, until some
townsmen ran in and freed the shop keepers from the hands of the
clerks; but when the clerks resisted they inflicted blows upon
them and put them to flight, well and thoroughly pommelled. The
latter, however, when they came back much battered into the city,
roused their comrades to avenge them. So on the next da