The Absurd History of Animals on Trial
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| A depiction of a pig being executed. |
I don't know why I chose to blog on this topic. I don’t handle
gore well, and I love animals. Maybe the Halloween season is getting to me, but
I spent a large portion of time researching brutal ways in which animals were
executed.
A
defense attorney attempting to convince the jury that his client is innocent is
a common occurrence in courtrooms today. This is what I know about the courtroom:
The defense attorney and prosecutor make their cases while the judge listens, and
a jury decides whether the accused is guilty. I won’t pretend I understand the complexities
of court cases. There are many reasons I’m not in law school. I thought I knew
the basics of what happened in a courtroom. But I was wrong because, in my knowledge of a courtroom, the accused has always been human.
Imagine
a pig standing in a courtroom, facing capital punishment for its crimes. Its
fate is in the hands of a jury who will determine whether it is guilty of the accused.
In Europe, from the thirteenth century until the eighteenth century, animals
could be tried for crimes ranging from property damage to murder. Today, animals
are not put on trial often. One reason animals do not face trial today is that
they are considered to have no moral agency and cannot be held responsible for
their actions in court.
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| A depiction of a pig on trial. |
While there
are many instances of animals on trial, some are more shocking than others. In
a trial known as the Basel case, a chicken – mistaken for a rooster – was put
on trial for laying an egg. The chicken was sentenced to being burnt alive. The
chicken’s burning was viewed "with as great solemnity as would have been
observed in consigning a heretic to the flames.”
The rooster convicted for its unnatural ability to lay an egg is a disturbing case. But this is not an isolated incident. There are records of over 200 cases in which animals were tried and executed for their crimes.
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| A small piece of a list of animals convicted in medieval Europe. From the book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals by Edward Payson Evans. |
A mule –
along with the offending human – was tried for bestiality, and the mule’s hooves
were cut off before it was burnt alive. A donkey on trial for bestiality was acquitted
because “she had always shown herself to be virtuous and well-behaved both at
home and abroad,” and was “in all her habits of life a most honest creature.”
There is also the case of a pig hanged in France for eating a consecrated wafer
and another case of a pig executed for eating a child – this crime was
considered extra offensive because it occurred on a Friday, which was a serious
violation of church decree.
This largely forgotten piece of history finds man’s best friend at the mercy of the court. The idea of trying animals for crimes seems ludicrous to me, but for centuries animals were treated as humans by the court system. So next time your pet gets into some trouble, just remember that at one point in time, they could have been thrown in jail, hanged, or burnt alive for such a crime.
When I stumbled
upon stories of animals on trial in medieval Europe, I was shocked that at one
point in time animals were thought to be morally responsible for their actions.
The animals put on trial were usually domestic animals. I don’t think that it
has ever occurred to me to try my dog for her crimes – not that Marshmallow is
a hardened criminal. And yet many years ago, in Europe, horses, dogs, dolphins,
and rats – among many other animals – were tried in a court of law as if they were
humans.
To read about the history of animals on trial:
To read about specific cases of animals on trial and the history
behind the trials:
I thought you did a great job incorporating your voice into this blog. You took a gruesome topic and made it into an enjoyable read by the way you utilized a first-person point of view to write a great personal introduction and by referencing your dog Marshmallow.
ReplyDeleteThis is a topic that I had never heard of before and I can’t even begin to fathom how holding an animal on trial would even work. I read more about the Basel case that you included, and found that there was a societal belief during this time that eggs that came from roosters were “used in witchcraft” with the potential to “produce a dreaded monster known as the basilisk or cockatrice.” A “cockatrice” was a “malignant winged reptile with the head of a cock and the tail of a serpent which destroyed men,” (I am not sure what to do with that information).
I also found in further research that pigs were Europe’s “worst serial offenders.” An interesting story I found was an instance of a pig France in 1394 that was hanged for “having sacrilegiously eaten a consecrated wafer.” This makes me wonder if all people during this time were all-accepting of this tradition of holding animals on trial. As a reader several centuries later, it is hard to imagine people finding this logical and practical.