Three years later, a sow was condemned to be beaten to death for having
mutilated the face of a child of the village of Charonne. The act of
condemnation in this case directed further that the flesh of the sow
should be given to the dogs of the village, and that the owner of the sow
and his wife should make a pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady at
Pontoise, and bring on their return a certificate that this injunction had
been duly complied with. In 1499, a bull was strangled for having killed a
boy in the lordship of Cauroy, which belonged to the abbey of Beaufiré.
Lionnois gives, in his history of Nancy, a full report of the proceedings
on the delivery of a condemned pig to the executioner of that city in
1572. He mentions, among other details, that the animal, secured by a
cord, was led to a cross near the cemetery; that from the most remote
period the justice of the lord, the abbot of Moyen Moutier, was accustomed
to deliver to the provost, or marshal of St. Diez, near to this cross, all
condemned criminals, that execution might ensue; and that, the said pig
being a brute beast, the mayor and the justice held a conference at that
place, and left the said pig tied with a cord, without prejudice to the
judicial rights of the lord.
Judicial proceedings against the lower animals were not confined to
France, for the list of such cases compiled by M. Berriat St. Prix, and
published in the "Memoires de la Societé des Antiquaires" for 1829,
mentions one tried at Lausanne in 1364, another at the same town in 1451,
a third at Basle in 1474, another at Lausanne in 1479, and a fifth at the
same place in 1554. Concerning the first of these Swiss trials, Ruchat
states, in his history of the Protestant reformation in Switzerland, that
the victim was a pig that had killed a child in the village of Chattens,
situated among the Jorat hills. It was cited to appear in the Bishop's
Court at Lausanne, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death--the
executioner being a pork butcher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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