Animals used to be put on trial in court in Europe and Colonial America. It wasn't an everyday occurrence, but it happened reasonably often. This book goes into detail about how it happened and why.

The usual defense of an animal in court was that animals aren't capable of reason, understanding laws, or taking responsibility for their actions. Therefore animals shouldn't be prosecuted in court. The counterpoint to this argument was that animals, like insane people, are brought to court not to punish them, but to prevent future harm. This specific set of arguments for and against animals in court are recorded as taking place repeatedly in different regions and hundreds of years apart.

An interesting understanding of demonic possession was offered in a French court in the 1100's. They said a sound mind and body are sufficient to prevent demonic possession, but a troubled mind and sick body are not capable of withstanding demonic attack. Thus, an ill person becomes worse at the infestation of an evil spirit, and cannot properly heal until the demon is cast out.

In the year "864, the Council of Worms decreed that bees, which had caused the death of a human being by stinging him, should be forthwith suffocated in the hive before they could make any more honey, otherwise the entire contents of the hive would become demoniacally tainted and thus rendered unfit for use as food."

"Bartholomew Chassenee, a distinguished French jurist of the sixteenth century (born at Issy-l'Eveque in 1480), made his reputation at the bar as counsel for some rats,
which had been put on trial before the ecclesiastical court of Autun on the charge of having feloniously eaten up and wantonly destroyed the barley-crop of that province.
The attorney assigned to the rats began by pointing out that a single summons was not sufficient since the rats themselves were spread out across the countryside, so a second summons with a later court date was sent to and posted in every parish where the rats reside.
When the court date arrived the attorney argued that his clients had not appeared due to the danger of them travelling through areas inhabited by their enemies, the cats." - page 26

"The same ancient code that condemned a homicidal ox to be stoned, declared that a witch should not be suffered to live, and although the Jewish lawgiver may have regarded the former enactment chiefly as a police regulation designed to protect persons against unruly cattle, it was, like the decree of death against witches, genetically connected with the Hebrew cult and had therefore an essentially religious character." - page 30

"Diabolical agencies were assumed to be at work in every maleficent force of nature and to be incarnate in every noxious creature." - page 31

"There was described the miracle of St. Bernard, who excommunicated the flies annoying the worshipers at the abbey church of Foigny, and the next day they were all dead in such a great quantity that they had to be shoveled out. Of course "a sharp and sudden frost may have added to the force and efficacy of the excommunication."

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "the lower animals are satellites of Satan instigated by the powers of hell and therefore proper to be cursed,"
"the anathema then is not to be pronounced against the animals as such, but should be hurled inferentially (per modum conclusionis) at the devil, who makes use of irrational creatures to our detriment." - page 55

Origen held that the scheme of redemption embraced also Satan and his satellites, who would be ultimately converted and restored to their primitive estate. - page 68

Father Pere Bourgeant was of the opinion that since animals had no original sin, they would be smarter and more moral than humans as a result of their pure souls, but they had even more imperfect bodies than humans hindering them. "So far from being astonished at their manifestations of intelligence, foresight, memory and reason, I am rather surprised that they do not display these qualities in a higher degree, since their soul is probably far more perfect than ours. Their defects are, as I have discovered, owing to the fact that in brute as in us, the mind works through material organs, and inasmuch as these organs are grosser and less perfect in the lower animals than in man, it follows that their exhibitions of intelligence, their thoughts and all their mental operations must be less perfect; and, if these proud spirits are conscious of their condition, how humiliating it must be for them to see themselves thus embruted ! Whether they are conscious of it or not, this deep degradation is the first act of God's vengeance executed on his foes. It is a foretaste of hell."

Other priests believed that animals were only animated by the spirits of devils. "The worship of animals originates in the belief that they are embodiments of devils, so that zoolatry, which holds such a prominent place in primitive religions, is only a specific form of demonolatry." As a result, "The good Catholic becomes an efficient co-worker with God by maltreating brutes and thus aiding the Almighty in punishing the devils, of which they are the visible and bruisable forms. Whatever pain is inflicted is felt, not by the physical organism, but by the animated spirit. It is the embodied demon that really suffers, howling in the beaten dog and squealing in the butchered pig."

There was a case in France in the late 1800's where a nobleman bequeathed his estate to his own corpse, to preserve the corpse as well as possible, manage and expand the estate on its behalf for to build a massive grand mausoleum to house it.

Public executions of animals were often the result of a child being disfigured or killed by the animals. These trials served three purposes. Firstly, they established whether or not the parents of the child were at fault. Secondly, they reiterated the value of the childrens' lives and provided a forum to publicly condemn the tragedy. Thirdly, they guaranteed that however monetarily valuable the animals might be they would be destroyed and not present a future threat to the safety of the community.

In some bestiality cases the animals were pardoned as unwilling participants, while in others the animals were executed alongside their owners, depending on the opinion of the particular judge.

In his Magnalia Christi Americana (Book VI, (III), London, 1702) Cotton Mather records that "on June 6, 1662, at New Haven, there was a most Capital Punishment of Animals
unparalleled wretch, one Potter by name, about sixty years of age, executed for damnable Bestialities." - Page 149

I know academically that Medieval Antisemitism was severe, but reading some of the specifics is horrifying. For instance, in some places intermarriage between Christians and Jews or Muslims was considered bestiality. "The question was gravely discussed by jurists, whether cohabitation of a Christian with a Jewess or vice versa constitutes sodomy. Damhouder (Prax. Rer. Critn. c, 96, n. 48) is of the opinion that it does, and Nicolaus Boer (Decis., 136, n. 5) cites the case of a certain Johannes Alardus or Jean Alard, who kept a Jewess in his house in Paris and had several children by her; he was convicted of sodomy on account of this relation and burned, together with his paramour, since coition with a Jewess is precisely the same as if a man should copulate with a dog" (DopL, Theat., II. p. 157). Damhouder, in the work just cited, includes Turks and Saracens in the same category, "inasmuch as such persons in the eye of the law and our holy faith differ in no wise from beasts." - Page 153

In some cases Jewish people were even considered lower than some animals. For instance, "A 12 Century law in the Customs and styles of Bourgoingne (Essai sur l'Histoire du Droit Francais by Amira, II. p. 302) states: ""it is the law and custom in Burgundy that if an ox or a horse commit one or several homicides, it shall not be condemned to death, but shall be taken by the Seignior within whose jurisdiction the deed was perpetrated or by his servitors and be confiscated to him and shall be sold and appropriated to the profit of the said Seignior; but if other beasts or Jews do it, they shall be hanged by the hind feet [until dead]"" - page 165

So that I don't end this on such a depressing note, in some cases inanimate objects have also been subject to ridiculous judicial attention.

In many Germanic states it was law that any object which caused a person's death was forfeited to the state. The idea behind this seems to have been that the object would be tainted if it were used by the relatives of the deceased, and a possible benefit was that if the family had been responsible they would not benefit.

In Athens some time before 100 AD the writer Pausanias records that a statue of an athlete named Theagenes fell on a man and killed him. The statue was put on trial, convicted of murder, and exiled by being thrown into the sea. After the Oracle at Delphi said that the land would be barren until the statue was restored it was pardoned, dredged up, and set up again.

In the archives of Maryland, edited by Dr. William Hand Browne and Miss Harrison in 1887, mention is made of an inquest held January 31, 1637, on the body of a planter, who " by the fall of a tree had his bloud bulke broken." " And furthermore the Jurors aforesaid upon their oath aforesaid say that the said tree moved to the death of the said John Bryant; and therefore find the said tree forfeited to the Lord Proprietor."



Words I learned from this book:

abrogation: to legally cancel something
anthropophagy: human cannibalism
brigue: intrigue
durance: imprisonment
jurisconsult: A person authorised to give legal advice
jurisprudent: adjective meaning understanding law
murrain: any plague that effects domestic animals
adduce: allege
medicaments: medicines
hagiolatry: worship of the saints
supererogation: an effort beyond the call of duty
consentient: in complete agreement
transmigration: passing of a soul into another body after death
lucubration: laborious cogitation, a book that is the result of difficult thoughts
puceron: aphid
epizootic: adjective meaning epidemic among animals of a single kind in a specific region
hale: haul (also healthy)
yclept: by the name of ( )

La cosa ha per noi oggi dell'incredibile, ma veri processi in tribunale contro gli animali - con tanto di avvocato difensore e notifiche scritte agli imputati - si sono ripetuti per secoli e secoli. Condanne all'esilio, alla maledizione, all'impiccagione o al rogo sono state eseguite contro insetti, vermi, mammiferi che avevano danneggiato le proprietà umane o ucciso bambini ed adulti. Gli atti dei processi sono conservati negli archivi delle diverse città del mondo, Italia compresa. Un maiale che aveva assalito una persona, un asino che si credeva "posseduto", le cavallette che invadevano i campi e danneggiavano il raccolto: anche le bestie, come gli umani, potevano cadere vittime di procedimenti ecclesiasti, di procedimenti civili o penali. Le pagine di Edward Payson Evans, dedicate a queste incredibili vicende, non ricostruiscono solamente una storia ora agghiacciante, ora ridicola di animali, ma restituiscono una significativa e scomoda immagine dell'uomo: innanzitutto la sua ineliminabile necessità di "proiettare" il male e le colpe su una vittima da sacrificare e il bisogno di esorcizzare ciò che teme con formule e procedimenti intrisi di razionalismo e di superstizione al contempo.