On October 1, 1457, in the French city of Burgundy, a trial took place for retribution for the murderer of an infant, and the judge, witnesses, and lawyers sat waiting for the accused to speak, who was never supposed to speak!.. only she was a female pig! The sow had six little pigs that were still suckling from her, and when the crime occurred, she and her children were arrested and referred to trial, which sentenced her to death, but they pardoned her children because their complicity was not proven. In the book “The Criminal Prosecution and Death Punishment of Animals,” published in 1906 AD, the American researcher Edward Payson Evans lists many animals going to court, including natural pests, such as: moles, mice, snakes, birds, snails, worms, locusts, caterpillars, termites, and various types of beetles and flies. Rarely did any animal escape justice. There is even a record of ancient trials that showed that dolphins were punished in the city French Marseilles, 1596 AD, but we do not know what crime these dolphins committed in order for them to be executed. Pigs, dogs, cows, mice, and even flies, bugs, and mites were summoned in court. Witnesses were summoned and evidence was heard on both sides. The trial was conducted entirely in its conventional form. They also gave the animals a form of legal assistance. There was a lawyer for the accused animal to defend it. A pig was accused of eating a human. The court convicted the pig and sentenced it to be burned alive in front of the public. Europe, and especially France, did not have all this civilization that it was trying to export from itself, throughout its history. Its history was marred by many dark periods at times and crazy at other times. In fact, there were more than 10 centuries in the history of Europe that were considered among the craziest periods when animals were put on trial and sentenced, like humans, to imprisonment at times and execution at other times. The animal would stand in the dock, and there would be a prosecution and a lawyer. Then the judge would look into the case and issue a ruling.
Accused: Ant!
In France again, specifically in 1386 in the city of Falaise; A case was brought before the court against the ants that bitten the hand and face of a child, causing the child’s death, according to the family. The ants were tried before the court and the death sentence was issued. In accordance with the rule of an eye for an eye, the executioner came, wore new gloves, and executed the ants in a public square in front of the public. This scene was not strange to the public at the time, which viewed these incidents as a victory and the achievement of justice. The first known cases of animal punishment took place through Christian monasteries, and in the seventh century AD, specifically in the year 666 AD, in Saint Agricola in the French city of Avignon, storks were burned, followed in the eighth century AD, specifically in the year 728 AD, in Saint Permenius on the German island of Reichenau, the expulsion of poisonous reptiles, and in the ninth century AD, in the year 824, when the mole was expelled, in the Italian Aosta Valley, although the sources do not mention the exact heinous crimes committed. Those animals. Ecclesiastical animal courts continued beginning in the tenth century in Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, and Denmark, in addition to the Scandinavian countries. Many animals and rodents that destroyed agricultural crops were punished. The goal of these church trials was to reduce the damage committed by the animal and not to deter the animal. When the animal owner knows that his animals are exposed to such trials, he will try to limit their harm so as not to lose them.
Pray first!
Church trials did not usually begin with the trial of the animal before a set of preliminary measures were taken. First, the person alleging harm would file a complaint with the ecclesiastical court, and then a priest – who was in the place of a judge in the church – would be sent to verify the extent of the harm that the animal mentioned in the lawsuit was alleged to have caused. The court then asks the church’s parishioners to pray to appease Heaven’s wrath before the trial proper begins. If prayer does not succeed in expelling the animal or limiting its damage, the court summons a group of violating animals to appear in court, and an agent is appointed to represent the accused animals. Any lawyer who defends animals took their mission seriously, devoting a lot of time, knowledge and legal experience to defending their representatives, and they relied heavily on three strategies: They begin by avoiding all arguments by using redemptive tactics, and if that fails, they demand animal prosecution; If they also fail, they resort to the last solution, which is to defend the actions of their representatives and justify their actions.
Witnesses are also guilty
Civil courts did not differ much from church courts in punishing animals, only in form and body of advisors. On September 5, 1379, two pigs fought in one of the French monasteries in the city of Burgundy, and killed a man named Perinot Moet. As was customary at that time, the entire herd of pigs was arrested and the defendants appeared before the trial. The pigs were standing in the dock, not knowing what was happening, while their assigned human lawyer tried to defend them as best he could, but the judge announced the verdict. By death penalty. The judge was not satisfied with that, but decided to try the rest of the pigs who saw the crime and remained silent and did not intervene. The judge saw that the rest of the pigs “agreed to the attack,” and therefore he would not allow them to escape justice. The former French monastery could not bear the economic loss of all those pigs, so he wrote to the governor of Burgundy, pleading with him to pardon the bystander pigs. As for the killer pigs, they were left to face their fate. The city governor responded to the abbot’s request and announced a pardon for the bystander pigs, while the guilty pigs were executed. Records do not show how they were executed, but it was common at the time that the guilty animals were executed by hanging or burning.
Exceptional law
Sometimes the courts worked in the animal’s favor; If the offending animal represents value, such as: a bull, horse, or donkey; The judge will be more receptive to the defense lawyer’s plea to avoid the death penalty. For example, in 1395 on the Italian island of Sardinia, local cattle were arrested after they had caused damage to other people’s farms. The accused were donkeys, and the court dealt with the donkeys in a remarkable manner. By issuing a light sentence by cutting off the ears of each donkey, imprisoning it for a short period and releasing it, while such crimes led to death in the cases of other animals. The European imagination in prosecuting animals reached more than that; In some cases of execution, they would bring the guilty animal, such as a pig, for example, and dress it in human clothes so that they could execute it, and so that the public would not be deterred from seeing the execution scene, and they would feel that like them, he was a human who should be punished and not disturb the divine order.
Fatwas on trials!
With the repeated cases of execution of livestock animals such as cows, pigs, and sheep, many farmers thought of benefiting from the meat of condemned animals, and this was a major problem. When many pigs were executed after the killing of a child in the German city of Frankfurt in 1553; Their bodies were then thrown into the river and could be found in the mess, so various European churches established a law prohibiting the meat of animals condemned to death. The matter went so far as to make a law that if a person was stung by bees and died from the sting, the bees must be suffocated in their hive before they can produce honey, otherwise the products of the guilty bees are also prohibited. In other European countries, such as: the Netherlands and Belgium, the meat of animals sentenced to death was distributed to the poor of the city. In Belgium in 1578, the meat of a cow that had been sentenced to death was sold and its meat was cut by a butcher. The proceeds from the sale were divided equally between the affected party and the city treasury to distribute its money to the poor.
