LEGAL PROSECUTIONS OF ANIMALS. 619 



LEGAL PROSECUTIONS OF ANIMALS. 



By WILLIAM JONES, F. S. A. 



AMONG the strange practices of olden times nothing can be con- 

 ceived more truly absurd than the trial, by legal proceedings; of 

 animals accused of high crimes and misdemeanors, which prevailed, 

 more or less, from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, and present 

 a curious picture of the habits of thought during those periods. 



The trials in question were conducted with all the solemnity of 

 the law. In every instance advocates were assigned to defend the 

 animals. Domestic animals were tried in the ordinary criminal courts ; 

 wild animals of a noxious description, such as rats, locusts, caterpillars, 

 and such like, were subjected to the ecclesiastical courts. The first 

 excommunication fulminated against animals is recorded in the twelfth 

 century. St. Foix, in his "Essais Historiques sur Paris," states that 

 the Bishop of Laon pronounced in 1120 an injunction against the 

 caterpillars and field-mice, on account of the ravages they made on the 

 crops. 



The mode of trial in the criminal courts was this : The accused 

 animal was committed to prison ; the procureur, or officer who ex- 

 ercised the functions of prosecutor at the court, after hearing witnesses 

 and taking down their depositions, and the crime of homicide being 

 proved, the judge condemned the animal to be strangled, and hung by 

 the back-legs to an oak-tree, or a gibbet, according to the custom of 

 the country. In the case of damages done to property, the inhabitants 

 of a district suffering therefrom, experts were appointed by the court 

 to survey and report on the subject. A lawyer was then appointed to 

 defend the animals, and show cause why they should not be summoned 

 before justice. They were then called three times, and, not appearing, 

 judgment was given against them in default. The court then issued 

 an admonition, warning them to leave the district within a certain 

 time, at the expiration of which, if they were still contumacious, they 

 were to be anathematized with all due solemnity. Instead, however, of 

 feeling the effects of this terrible sentence, it is recorded that in some 

 instances the noxious animals, contrary to " withering off the face of 

 the earth," became more abundant and destructive. This the lawyers 

 attributed neither to the injustice of the sentence, nor want of power 

 of the court, but to the machinations of Satan, who, as in the case of 

 Job, is at certain times permitted to tempt and annoy mankind. 



From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century there are numerous 

 examples of proceedings in the criminal court in the case of pigs (and 

 sows, more particularly) who had devoured children. As one may see 

 at present in certain localities, these animals in the middle ages ran 

 about the streets of villages, and were, it would seem, more addicted 



