UNIVERSITY OF CAL FORM A SAN DIEG 
 
 3 1822017084393
 
 F 
 
 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 MAR Q 8 1999 
 
 Cl 39 (5/97) 
 
 UCSD Lib.
 
 THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION 
 AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 OF ANIMALS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ECCLESI- 
 ASTICAL ARCHITECTURE. Fully 
 illustrated. In one Vol. Crown 8vo. Price 9-r. 
 
 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS AND ANI- 
 MAL PSYCHOLOGY. In one Vol. 
 Crown 8vo. Price 9J. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
 
 / 
 
 '/fr 

 
 THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION 
 
 AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 
 
 OF ANIMALS 
 
 0A A S 
 
 E. P. EVANS 
 
 BY 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 '' ANIMAL SYMBOLISM IN ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE," 
 EVOLUTIONAL ETHICS AND ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 MCMVI
 
 Copyright 1906 by William Heinemann
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Sources Amira's distinction between retributive and pre- 
 ventive processes Addosio's incorrect designation of the 
 latter as civil suits Inconsistent attitude of the Church 
 in excommunicating animals Causal relation of crime 
 to demoniacal possession Squatter sovereignty of devils 
 Aura corrumpens Diabolical infestation and lack 
 of ventilation " Bewitched kine "Greek furies and 
 Christian demons Homicidal bees, laying cocks and 
 crowing hens Theory of the personification of animals 
 Beasts in Prankish, Welsh, and old German laws 
 Animal prosecutions and witchcraft The Mosaic code 
 in Christian courts Pagan deities as demons Born 
 malefactors among beasts The theory of punishment 
 in modern criminology p. \ 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BUGS AND BEASTS BEFORE THE LAW 
 
 Criminal prosecution of rats Chassende appointed to defend 
 them Report of the trial Chassenee employed as 
 counsel in other cases of this kind His dissertation on 
 the subject Nature of his argument Authorities and 
 precedents The withering of the fig-tree at Bethany 
 justified and explained by Dr. Trench Eels and blood- 
 suckers in Lake Leman cursed by the Bishop of 
 Lausanne with the approval of Heidelberg theologians 
 White bread turned black, and swallows, fish, and flies
 
 vi Contents 
 
 destroyed by anathema St. Pirminius expels reptiles 
 Vermifugal efficacy of St. Magnus' crosier Papal 
 execratories Animals regarded by the law as lay 
 persons, and not entitled to benefit of clergy Methods 
 of procedure Jurisdiction of the courts Records of 
 judicial proceedings against insects Important trial of 
 weevils at St. Jean-de-Maurienne extending over more 
 than eight months Untenableness of Menebrea's theory 
 Summary of the pleadings Futile attempts at com- 
 promise Final decision doubtful St. Eldrad and the 
 snakes Views of Thomas Aquinas Distinction be- 
 tween excommunication and anathema " Sweet beasts 
 and stenchy beasts '' Animals as incarnations of devils 
 Their diabolical character assumed in papal formula 
 for blessing water to kill vermin Amusing treatise by 
 Pere Bougeant on this subject All animals animated by 
 devils, and all pagans and unbaptized persons possessed 
 with them Demons the real causes of diseases 
 Father Lohbauer's prescription in such cases Formula 
 of exorcism issued by Leo XIII. Recent instances of 
 demoniacal possession Hoppe's psychological explana- 
 tion of them Charcot on faith-cures Why not the duty 
 of the Catholic Church to inculcate kindness to animals 
 Zoolatry a form of demonolatry Gnats especially 
 dangerous devils Bodelschwingh's discovery of the 
 bacillus tnfernalis Gaspard Bailly's disquisition with 
 specimens of plaints, pleas, etc. Ayrault protests against 
 such proceedings Hemmerlein's treatise on exorcisms 
 Criminal prosecution of field-mice Vermin excom- 
 municated by the Bishop of Lausanne Protocol of 
 judicial proceedings against caterpillars Conjurers of 
 cabbage-worms Swallows proscribed by a Protestant 
 parson Custom of writing letters of advice to rats 
 Writs of ejectment served on them Rhyming rats 
 in Ireland Ancient usage mentioned by Kassianos 
 Bassos Capital punishment of larger quadrupeds 
 Berriat-Saint-Prix's Reports and Researches List of 
 culprits Beasts burned and buried alive and put to the 
 rack Swine executed for infanticide Bailly's bill of 
 expenses An ox decapitated for its demerits Punish- 
 ment of buggery Cohabitation of a Christian with a 
 Jewess declared to be sodomy Trial of a sow and six 
 sucklings for murder Bull sent to the gallows for 
 killing a lad A horse condemned to death for homicide
 
 Contents vii 
 
 A cock burned at the stake for the unnatural crime of 
 laying an egg- Lapeyronie's investigation of the subject 
 Racine's satire on such prosecutions in Les Plaideursj 
 Lex talionis Tit for tat the law of the primitive man 
 and the savage The application of this iron rule in 
 Hebrew legislation Flesh of a culprit pig not to be 
 eaten Athenian laws for punishing inanimate objects 
 Recent execution of idols in China Russian bell 
 sentenced to perpetual exile in Siberia for abetting in- 
 surrection Pillory for dogs in Vienna Treatment 
 prescribed for mad dogs in the Avesta Cruelty of laws, 
 of talion and decrees of corruption of blood Examples 
 in ancient and modern legislation Cicero approves of 
 such penalties for political offences Survival of this 
 conception of justice in theology Constitutio Criminalis 
 Carolina Lombroso opposed to trial by jury as a relic 
 of barbarism Corruption of Swiss cantonal courts 
 Deodand in English law Applications of it in Mary- 
 land and in Scotland Blackstone's theory of it untenable 
 Penalties inflicted for suicide Ancient legislation 
 on this subject Legalization of suicide Abolition of 
 deodands in England p. 18 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN PENOLOGY 
 
 Recent change in the spirit of criminal jurisprudence 
 Mediaeval tribunals cut with the executioner's sword the 
 intricate knots which the modern criminalist essays to 
 untie Phlebotomy a panacea in medicine and law 
 Restless ghosts of criminals who died unpunished 
 Execution of vampires and were-wolves Case of a were- 
 wolf who devoured little children "even on Friday" 
 Pope Stephen VI. brings the corpse of his predecessor 
 to trial Mediaeval and modern conceptions of culpa- 
 bilityProblems of psycho-pathological jurisprudence 
 Degrees of mental vitiation Italians pioneers in the 
 scientific study of criminality Effects of these specula- 
 tions upon legislation Barbarity of mediaeval penal 
 justice Gradual abolition of judicial torture Cruel 
 sentence pronounced by Carlo Borromeo " Blue Laws "
 
 viii Contents 
 
 a great advance on contemporary English penal codes 
 Moral and penal responsibility Atavism and criminality 
 Physical abnormities Capacity and symmetry of the 
 skull Circumvolutions of the brain Tattooing not a 
 peculiarity of criminals, but simply an indication of low 
 aesthetic sense Theories of the origin and nature of 
 crime Intelligence not always to be measured by the 
 size of the encephalon Remarkable exceptions in 
 Gambetta, Bichat, Bischoff and Ugo Foscolo Ad- 
 vanced criminalists justly dissatisfied with the penal 
 codes of to-day Measures proposed by Lombroso and 
 his school Their conclusions not sustained by facts 
 Crime through hypnotic suggestion Difficulty of de- 
 fining insanity Coleridge's definition too inclusive 
 Predestination and evolution Criminality among the 
 lower animals Punishment preventive or retributive 
 Schopenhauer's doctrine of responsibility for character 
 Remarkable trial of a Swiss toxicomaniac, Marie 
 Jeanneret " Method in Madness " not uncommon 
 Social safety the supreme law Application of this 
 principle to " Cranks " Spirit of imitation peculiarly 
 strong in such classes Contagiousness of crime 
 Criminology now in a period of transition ... ^.193 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A. De Actis Scindicorum Communitatis Sancti Julliani 
 
 agentium contra Animalia Bruta ad formam mus- 
 carum volantia coloris viridis communi voce appellata 
 Verpillions seu Amblevins p. 259 
 
 B. Traite des Monitoires avec un Plaidoyer centre les 
 
 Insectes par Spectable Gaspard Bailly ... p. 287 
 
 C. Allegation, Replication, and Judgment in the process 
 
 against field-mice at Stelvio in 1519 p. 307 
 
 D. Admonition, Denunciation, and Citation of the Inger by 
 
 the Priest Bernhard Schmid in the name and by the 
 authority of the Bishop of Lausanne in 1478 p. 309 
 
 E. Decree of Augustus, Duke of Saxony and Elector, com- 
 
 mending the action of Parson Greysser in putting the 
 sparrows under ban, issued at Dresden in 1559 p. 311
 
 Contents ix 
 
 F. Chronological List of Excommunications and Prose- 
 
 cutions of Animals from the ninth to the nineteenth 
 century p. 313 
 
 G. Receipt, dated January 9, 1386, in which the hangman 
 
 of Falaise acknowledges to have been paid by the 
 Viscount of Falaise ten sous and ten deniers tournois 
 for the execution of an infanticidal sow, and also ten 
 sous tournois for a new glove p. 335 
 
 H. Receipt, dated September 24, 1394, in which Jehan 
 Micton acknowledges that he received the sum of fifty 
 sous tournois from Thomas de Juvigney, Viscount of 
 Mortaing, for having hanged a pig, which had killed and 
 murdered a child in the parish of Roumaygne p. 336 
 
 I. Attestation of Symon de Baudemont, Lieutenant of the 
 Bailiff of Nantes and Meullant, made by order of the 
 said bailiff and the king's proctor, on March 15, 1403, 
 and certifying to the expenses incurred in executing a 
 sow that had devoured a small child p. 338 
 
 J. Receipt, dated October 16, 1408, and signed by Toustain 
 Pincheon, jailer of the royal prisons in the town of 
 Pont de Larche, acknowledging the payment of nine- 
 teen sous and six deniers tournois for food furnished to 
 sundry men and to one pig kept in the said prisons on 
 charge of crime .A 34 
 
 K. Letters Patent, by which Philip the Bold, Duke of 
 Burgundy, on September 12, 1379, granted the petition 
 of the Friar Humbert de Poutiers, Prior of the town 
 of Saint-Marcel-lez-Jussey, and pardoned two herds of 
 swine, which had been condemned to suffer the extreme 
 penalty of the law as accomplices in an infanticide 
 committed by three sows p. 342 
 
 L. Sentence pronounced by the Mayor of Loens de Chartres 
 on the 1 2th of September, 1606, condemning Guillaume 
 Guyart to be hanged and burned together with a 
 bitch .A 344 
 
 M. Sentence pronounced by the Judge of Savigny in 
 January, 1457, condemning to death an infanticidal 
 sow. Also the sentence of confiscation pronounced 
 nearly a month later on the six pigs of the said sow 
 for complicity in her crime p. 346
 
 x Contents 
 
 N. Sentence pronounced, April 18, 1499, in a criminal 
 prosecution instituted before the Bailiff of the Abbey 
 of Josaphat, in the Commune of Seves, near Chartres, 
 against a pig condemned to be hanged for having killed 
 an infant. In this case the owners of the pig were 
 fined eighteen francs for negligence, because the child 
 was their fosterling p. 352 
 
 O. Sentence pronounced, June 14, 1494, by the Grand 
 Mayor of the church and monastery of St. Martin de 
 Laon. condemning a pig to be hanged and strangled 
 for infanticide committed on the fee-farm of Clermont- 
 lez-Montcornet p. 354 
 
 P. Sentence pronounced, March 27, 1567, by the Royal 
 Notary and Proctor of the Bailiwick and Bench of the 
 Court of Judicatory of Senlis, condemning a sow with 
 a black snout to be hanged for her cruelty and ferocity 
 in murdering a girl of four months, and forbidding the 
 inhabitants of the said seignioralty to let such beasts 
 run at large on penalty of an arbitrary fine ... p. 356 
 
 Q. Sentence of death pronounced upon a bull, May 16, 1499, 
 by the Bailiff of the Abbey of Beaupre\ for furiously 
 killing Lucas Dupont, a young man of fourteen or 
 fifteen years of age p. 358 
 
 R. Scene from Racine's comedy Les Plaideurs, in which a 
 dog is tried and condemned to the galleys for stealing 
 a capon p. 360 
 
 S. Record of the decision of the Law Faculty of the 
 University of Leipsic condemning a cow to death for 
 having killed a woman at Machern near Leipsic, July 
 20, 1621 p. 361 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY /. 362 
 
 INDEX p. 373
 
 THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AND 
 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT OF ANIMALS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE present volume is the result of the revision 
 and expansion of two essays entitled " Bugs and 
 Beasts before the Law," and " Modern and 
 Mediaeval Punishment," which appeared in 
 The Atlantic Monthly, in August and Sep- 
 tember 1884. Since that date the author has 
 collected a vast amount of additional material 
 on the subject, which has also been discussed 
 by other writers in several publications, the 
 most noteworthy of which are Professor Karl 
 von Amira's Thierstrafen und Thierprocesse 
 (Innsbruck, 1891), Carlo d'Addosio's Bestie 
 Delinquent* (Napoli, 1892), and G. Tobler's 
 Thierprocesse in der Schiveis (Bern, 1893), 
 but in none of these works, except the first- 
 mentioned, are there any important statements 
 of facts or citations of cases in addition to those 
 adduced in the essays already mentioned, for 
 which the writer was indebted chiefly to the
 
 2 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 extensive and exceedingly valuable researches 
 of Berriat-Saint-Prix and M. L. Menebrea, and 
 the Consilium Primum of Bartholomew Chas- 
 senee, cited in the appended bibliography. 
 Professor Von Amira is a very distinguished 
 and remarkably keen-sighted jurisprudent and 
 treats the matter exclusively from a jurispru- 
 dential point of view, his main object being to 
 discover some general principle on which to 
 explain these strange phenomena, and thus to 
 assign to them their proper place and true 
 significance in the historical evolution of the idea 
 of justice and the methods of attaining it by 
 legal procedure. 
 
 Von Amira draws a sharp line of technical 
 distinction between Thierstrafen and Thierpro- 
 cesse ; the former were capital punishments in- 
 flicted by secular tribunals upon pigs, cows, 
 horses, and other domestic animals as a penalty 
 for homicide; the latter were judicial proceedings 
 instituted by ecclesiastical courts against rats, 
 mice, locusts, weevils, and other vermin in order 
 to prevent them from devouring the crops, and to 
 expel them from orchards, vineyards, and culti- 
 vated fields by means of exorcism and excom- 
 munication. Animals, which were in the service 
 of man, could be arrested, tried, convicted and 
 executed, like any other members of his house- 
 hold; it was, therefore, not necessary to summon 
 them to appear in court at a specified time to 
 answer for their conduct, and thus make them,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 3 
 
 in the strict sense of the term, a party to the 
 prosecution, for the sheriff had already taken 
 them in charge and consigned them to the 
 custody of the jailer. Insects and rodents, on 
 the other hand, which were not subject to human 
 control and could not be seized and imprisoned 
 by the civil authorities, demanded the interven- 
 tion of the Church and the exercise of its super- 
 natural functions for the purpose of compelling 
 them to desist from their devastations and to 
 retire from all places devoted to the production 
 of human sustenance. The only feasible method 
 of staying the ravages of these swarms of noxious 
 creatures was to resort to " metaphysical aid " 
 and to expel or exterminate them by sacerdotal 
 conjuring and cursing. The fact that it was 
 customary to catch several specimens of the 
 culprits and bring them before the seat of 
 justice, and there solemnly put them to death 
 while the anathema w r as being pronounced, 
 proves that this summary manner of dealing 
 would have been applied to the whole of them, 
 had it been possible to do so. Indeed, the 
 attempt was sometimes made to get rid of them 
 by setting a price on their heads, as was the case 
 with the plague of locusts at Rome in 880, when 
 a reward was offered for their extermination, but 
 all efforts in this direction proving futile, on 
 account of the rapidity with which they propa- 
 gated, recourse was had to exorcisms and be- 
 sprinklings with holy water.
 
 4 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 D'Addosio speaks of the actions brought 
 against domestic animals for homicide as penal 
 prosecutions, and those instituted against insects 
 and vermin for injury done to the fruits of the 
 field as civil suits (processi civili) ; but the latter 
 designation is not correct in any proper sense of 
 the term, since these actions were not suits to 
 recover for damages to property, but had solely 
 a preventive or prohibitive character. The 
 judicial process was preliminary to the utterance 
 of the malediction and essential to its efficacy. 
 Before fulminating an excommunication the 
 whole machinery of justice was put in motion 
 in order to establish the guilt of the accused, 
 who were then warned, admonished, and threat- 
 ened, and, in cases of obduracy, smitten with 
 the anathema maranatha and devoted to utter 
 destruction. As with all bans, charms, exorcisms, 
 incantations, and other magical hocus-pocus, the 
 omission of any formality would vitiate the 
 whole procedure, and, by breaking the spell, 
 deprive the imprecation or interdiction of its 
 occult virtue. Ecclesiastical thunder would thus 
 be robbed of its fatal bolt and reduced to mere 
 empty noise, the harmless explosion of a blank 
 cartridge. 
 
 The Church was not wholly consistent in its 
 explanations of these phenomena. In general 
 the swarms of devouring insects and other noxi- 
 ous vermin are assumed to have been sent at 
 the instigation of Satan (instigante sathana, per
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 5 
 
 maleficium diabolicum), and are denounced and 
 deprecated as snares of the devil and his satel- 
 lites (diaboli et ministrorum insidias) ; again 
 they are treated as creatures of God and agents 
 of the Almighty for the punishment of sinful 
 man ; from this latter point of view every effort 
 to exterminate them by natural means would be 
 regarded as a sort of sacrilege, an impious 
 attempt to war upon the Supreme Being and to 
 withstand His designs. In either case, whether 
 they were the emissaries of a wicked demon 
 or of a wrathful Deity, the only proper and per- 
 missible way of relief was through the offices 
 of the Church, whose bishops and other clergy 
 were empowered to perform the adjurations and 
 maledictions or to prescribe the penances and 
 propitiations necessary to produce this result. If 
 the insects were instruments of the devil, they 
 might be driven into the sea or banished to some 
 arid region, where they would all miserably 
 perish ; if, on the other hand, they were recog- 
 nized as the ministers of God, divinely delegated 
 to scourge mankind for the promotion of piety, it 
 would be suitable, after they had fulfilled their 
 mission, to cause them to withdraw from the 
 cultivated fields and to assign them a spot, 
 where they might live in comfort without injury 
 to the inhabitants. The records contain in- 
 stances of both kinds of treatment. 
 
 It was also as a protection against evil spirits 
 that the penalty of death was inflicted upon
 
 6 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 domestic animals. A homicidal pig or bull was 
 not necessarily assumed to be the incarnation of 
 a demon, although it was maintained by eminent 
 authorities, as we have shown in the present 
 work, that all beasts and birds, as well as creep- 
 ing things, were devils in disguise ; but the homi- 
 cide, if it were permitted to go unpunished, was 
 supposed to furnish occasion for the intervention 
 of devils, who were thereby enabled to take pos- 
 session of both persons and places. This belief 
 was prevalent in the Middle Ages, and is still 
 taught by the Catholic Church. In a little 
 volume entitled Die Verwaltung des Exorcistats 
 nach Massgabe der romischen Benediktionale, 
 of which a revised and enlarged edition was 
 published at Stuttgart in 1893 for the use of 
 priests as a manual of instruction in performing 
 exorcisms, it is expressly stated by the reverend 
 author, Dr. Theobald Bischofberger, that a 
 spot, where a murder or other heinous crime has 
 been committed, if the said crime remains unde- 
 tected or unexpiated, is sure to be infested by 
 demons, and that the inmates of a house or 
 other building erected upon such a site will be 
 peculiarly liable to diabolical possession, how- 
 ever innocent they may be personally. Indeed, 
 the more pure and pious they are, the greater 
 will be the efforts of the demons to enter into 
 and annoy them. Not only human beings, but 
 also all cattle after their kind, and even the 
 fowls of the barnyard are subject to infernal
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 7 
 
 vexations of this sort. The infestation thus pro- 
 duced may continue for centuries, and, although 
 the property may pass by purchase or inheritance 
 into other hands and be held successively by any 
 number of rightful owners, the demons remain 
 in possession unaffected by legal conveyances. 
 If each proprietor imagines he has an exclusive 
 title to .the estate, he reckons without the host 
 of devils, who exercise there the right of squatter 
 sovereignty and can be expelled only by sacer- 
 dotal authority. Dr. Bischofberger goes so far 
 as to affirm that it behoves the purchaser of a 
 piece of land to make sure that it is unen- 
 cumbered by devils as well as by debts, other- 
 wise he may have to suffer more from a demoniac 
 lien than from a dead pledge or any other form 
 of obligation in law. Information concerning 
 the latter can be obtained at the registry of 
 deeds, but it is far more difficult to ascertain 
 whether the infernal powers have any claims 
 upon it, since this knowledge can be derived only 
 inferentially and indirectly from inquiries into 
 the character of the proprietors for many genera- 
 tions and must always rest upon presumptive 
 evidence rather than positive proof. Our author 
 does not hesitate to assert that houses which 
 have been the abodes of pious people from time 
 immemorial ought to have a higher market value 
 than the habitations of notoriously wicked 
 families. It is thus shown that " godliness is 
 profitable " not only " unto all things," but also,
 
 8 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 as mediaeval writers were wont to say, unto some 
 things besides, which the apostle Paul in his 
 admonitions to his "son Timothy" never 
 dreamed of. We are also told that the aura 
 corrumpens resulting from diabolical infesta- 
 tion imparts to the dwelling a peculiar taint, 
 which it often retains for a long time after the 
 demons have been cast out, so that sensitive 
 persons cannot enter such a domicile without 
 getting nervously excited, slightly dizzy and all 
 in a tremble. The carnal mind, which is at 
 enmity with all supernatural explanations df 
 natural phenomena, would seek the source of 
 such sensations in an aura corrumpens arising 
 from the lack of proper ventilation, and find 
 relief by simply opening the windows instead of 
 calling in a priest with aspergills, and censers, 
 and benedictiones locorum. 
 
 We have a striking illustration of this truth 
 in the frequent cases of " bewitched kine." 
 European peasants often confine their cattle in 
 stalls so small and low that the beasts have not 
 sufficient air to breathe. The result is that a 
 short time after the stalls are closed for the night 
 the cattle get excited and begin to fret and fume 
 and stamp, and are found in the morning weak 
 and exhausted and covered with sweat. The 
 peasant attributes these phenomena to witchcraft, 
 and calls in an exorcist, who proceeds to expel 
 the evil spirits. Before performing the ceremony 
 of conjuration, he opens the doors and windows
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 9 
 
 and the admission of fresh air makes it quite 
 easy to cast out the demons. A German veter- 
 inarian, who reports several instances of this 
 kind, tried in vain to convince the peasants that 
 the trouble was due, not to sorcery, but to the 
 absence of proper sanatory conditions, and 
 finally, in despair of accomplishing his purpose 
 in any other way, told them that if the windows 
 were left open so that the witches could go in 
 and out freely, the demons would not enter into 
 the cattle. This advice was followed and the 
 malign influence ceased. 
 
 The ancient Greeks held that a murder, 
 whether committed by a man, a beast, or an 
 inanimate object, unless properly expiated, 
 would arouse the furies and bring pestilence 
 upon the land ; the mediaeval Church taught the 
 same doctrine, and only substituted the demons 
 of Christian theology for the furies of classical 
 mythology. As early as 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 demoniac- 
 ally tainted and thus rendered unfit for use as 
 food; it was declared to be unclean, and this 
 declaration of impurity implied a liability to 
 diabolical possession on the part of those who, 
 like Achan, " transgressed in the thing ac- 
 cursed." It was the same horror of aiding and
 
 io The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 abetting demons and enabling them to extend 
 their power over mankind that caused a cock, 
 which was suspected of having laid the so-called 
 " basilisk-egg," or a hen, addicted to the 
 ominous habit of crowing, to be summarily put 
 to death, since it w-as only by such expiation that 
 the evil could be averted. 
 
 A Swiss jurist, Eduard Osenbriiggen (Studien 
 ZUT deutschen und schiveiserischen Rechtsges- 
 chichte. Schaffhausen, 1868, p. 139-149), en- 
 deavours to explain these judicial proceedings 
 on the theory of the personification of animals. 
 As only a human being can commit crime and 
 thus render himself liable to punishment, he 
 concludes that it is only by an act of personifica- 
 tion that the brute can be placed in the same 
 category as man and become subject to the same 
 penalties. In support of this view he refers to 
 the fact that in ancient and mediaeval times 
 domestic animals were regarded as members of 
 the household and entitled to the same legal 
 protection as human vassals. In the Prankish 
 capitularies all beasts of burden or so-called 
 juments were included in the king's ban and 
 enjoyed the peace guaranteed by royal author- 
 ity : Ut jumenta pacem habent similiter per 
 bannum regis. The w : eregild extended to them 
 as it did to women and serfs under cover of the 
 man as master of the house and lord of the 
 manor. The beste covert, to use the old legal 
 phraseology, was thus invested with human
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 1 1 
 
 rights and inferentially endowed with human 
 responsibilities. According to old Welsh law 
 atonement was made for killing a cat or dog 
 belonging to another person by suspending the 
 animal by the tail so that its nozzle touched the 
 ground, and then pouring wheat over it until its 
 body was entirely covered. Old Germanic law 
 also recognized the competency of these animals 
 as witnesses in certain cases, as, for example, 
 when burglary had been committed by night, in 
 the absence of human testimony, the house- 
 holder was permitted to appear before the court 
 and make complaint, carrying on his arm a dog, 
 cat or cock, and holding in his hand three straws 
 taken from the roof as symbols of the house. 
 Symbolism and personification, as applied to 
 animals and inanimate objects, unquestionably 
 played an important part in primitive legislation, 
 but this principle does not account for the excom- 
 munication and anathematization of noxious 
 vermin or for the criminal prosecution and 
 capital punishment of homicidal beasts, nor does 
 it throw the faintest light upon the origin and 
 purpose of such proceedings. Osenbriiggen's 
 statement that the cock condemned to be burned 
 at Bale was personified as a heretic (Ketzer) and 
 therefore sentenced to the stake, is a far-fetched 
 and wholly fanciful explanation. As we have 
 already seen, the unfortunate fowl, suspected of 
 laying an egg in violation of its nature, was 
 feared as an abnormal, inauspicious, and there-
 
 12 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 fore diabolic creature ; the fatal cockatrice, which 
 was supposed to issue from this egg when 
 hatched, and the use which might be made of 
 its contents for promoting intercourse with evil 
 spirits, caused such a cock to be dreaded as a 
 dangerous purveyor to His Satanic Majesty, but 
 no member of the Kohlenberg Court ever 
 thought of consigning Chanticleer to the flames 
 as the peer of Wycliffe or of Huss in heresy. 
 
 The judicial prosecution of animals, resulting 
 in their excommunication by the Church or their 
 execution by the hangman, had its origin in the 
 common superstition of the age, which has left 
 such a tragical record of itself in the incredibly 
 absurd and atrocious annals of witchcraft. 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 enact- 
 ment 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 there- 
 fore an essentially religious character. It was 
 these two paragraphs of the Mosaic law that 
 Christian tribunals in the Middle Ages were 
 wont to adduce as their authority for prosecut- 
 ing and punishing both classes of delinquents, 
 although in the application of them they were 
 undoubtedly incited by motives and influenced 
 by fears wholly foreign to the mind of the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 13 
 
 Levitical legislator. The extension of Christi- 
 anity beyond the boundaries of Judaism and the 
 conversion of Gentile nations led to its gradual 
 but radical transformation. The propagation of 
 the new and aggressive faith among the Greeks 
 and Romans, and especially among the Indo-Ger- 
 manic tribes of Northern Europe, necessarily 
 deposed, degraded and demonized the ancestral 
 deities of the proselytes, who were taught hence- 
 forth to abjure the gods of their fathers and to 
 denounce them as devils. Thus missionary zeal 
 and success, while saving human souls from 
 endless perdition, served also to enlarge the 
 realm of the Prince of Darkness and to increase 
 the number of his subjects and satellites. The 
 new convert saw them with his mind's eye 
 skulking about in obscure places, haunting 
 forest dells and mountain streams by day, 
 approaching human habitations by night and 
 waiting for opportunities to lure him back to the 
 old worship or to take vengeance upon him for 
 his recreancy. Every untoward event furnished 
 an occasion for their intervention, which could 
 be averted or repelled only by the benedictions, 
 exorcisms or anathemas of the Church. The 
 ecclesiastical authorities were therefore directly 
 interested in encouraging this superstitious belief 
 as one of the chief sources of their power, and it 
 was for this reason that diabolical agencies were 
 assumed to be at work in every maleficent force 
 of nature and to be incarnate in every noxious
 
 14 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 creature. That this docrine is still held and this 
 policy still pursued by the bishops and other 
 clergy of the Roman CaFholic Church, no one 
 familiar with the literature of the subject can 
 deny. 
 
 Besides the manuals and rituals already cited, 
 consult, for example, Die deutschen Bischofe und 
 der Aberglaube : Eine Denkschrift von Dr. Fr. 
 Heinrich Reusch, Professor of Theology in the 
 University of Bonn, who vigorously protests 
 against the countenance given by the bishops to 
 the crassest superstitions. For specimens of the 
 literature condemned by the German professor, 
 but approved by the prelates and the pope, see 
 such periodicals as Monat-Rosen zu Ehren der 
 Unbefleckten Gottes-Mutter Maria and Der 
 Sendbote des gottlichen Herzens Jesu, published 
 by Jesuits at Innsbruck in the Tyrol. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the most recent and 
 most radical theories of juridical punishment, 
 based upon anthropological, sociological and 
 psychiaterical investigations, would seem to 
 obscure and even to obliterate the line of distinc- 
 tion between man and beast, so far as their 
 capacity for committing crime and their moral 
 responsibility for their misdeeds are concerned. 
 According to Lombroso there are i delinquent! 
 nati fra gli animali, beasts which are born 
 criminals and wilfully and wantonly injure 
 others of their kind, violating with perversity 
 and premeditation the laws of the society in
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 15 
 
 which they live. Thus the modern criminologist 
 recognizes the existence of the kind of malefactor 
 characterized by Jocodus Damhouder, a Belgian 
 jurist of the sixteenth century, as bestia laedens 
 ex internet malitia; but although he might admit 
 that the beast perpetrated the deed with malice 
 aforethought and with the clear consciousness of 
 wrong-doing, he would never think of bringing 
 such a creature to trial or of applying to it the 
 principle of retributive justice. This example 
 illustrates the radical change which the theory of 
 punishment has undergone in recent times and 
 the far-reaching influence which it is beginning 
 to exert upon penal legislation. In the second 
 part of the present work the writer calls attention 
 to this important revolution in the province of 
 criminology, discussing as concisely as possible 
 its essential features and indicating its general 
 scope and practical tendencies, so far as they 
 have been determined. It must be remembered, 
 however, that, although the savage spirit of 
 revenge, that eagerly demands blood for blood 
 without the slightest consideration of the ana- 
 tomical, physiological or psychological con- 
 ditions upon which the commission of the specific 
 act depends, has ceased to be the controlling 
 factor in the enactment and execution of penal 
 codes, the new system of jurisprudence, based 
 upon more enlightened conceptions of human 
 responsibility, is still in an inchoate state and 
 very far from having worked out a satisfactory
 
 1 6 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 solution of the intricate problem of the origin 
 and nature of crime and its proper penalty. 
 
 In 1386, an infanticidal sow was executed in 
 the old Norman city of Falaise, and the scene was 
 represented in fresco on the west wall of the 
 Church of the Holy Trinity in that city. This 
 curious painting no longer exists, and, so far as 
 can be ascertained, has never been engraved. It 
 has been frequently and quite fully described by 
 different writers, and the frontispiece of the 
 present volume is not a reproduction of the 
 original picture, but a reconstruction of it accord- 
 ing to these descriptions. It is taken from 
 Arthur Mangin's L'Homme et la Bete (Paris, 
 1872), of w : hich all the illustrations are more or 
 less fancy sketches. A full account of the trial 
 and execution is given in the present volume. 
 
 The iconographic edition of Jocodus Dam- 
 houder's Praxis Rerum Criminalium (Antverpiae, 
 1562) contains at the beginning of each section 
 an engraving representing the perpetration of 
 the crimes about to be discussed. That at the 
 head of the chapter entitled " De Damno Pecu- 
 ario " is a lively picture of the injuries done by 
 animals and rendering them liable to criminal 
 process; it is reproduced facing page 161 of the 
 present work. 
 
 The most important documents, from which 
 our knowledge of these judicial proceedings is 
 derived, are given in the Appendix, together with 
 a complete list of prosecutions and excommunica-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 17 
 
 tions during the past ten centuries, so far as we 
 have been able to discover any record of them. 
 
 The bibliography, although making no claim 
 to be exhaustive, comprises the principal works 
 on the subject. Articles and essays, which are 
 merely a rehash of other publications, it has not 
 been deemed necessary to mention. Such, for 
 example, are " Criminalprocesse gegen Thiere," 
 in Miscellen aus der neuesten auslandischen 
 Literatur (Jena, 1830, LXV. pp. 152-55), Jor- 
 gensen's Nogle Frugter af mil Otium (Kopen- 
 hagen, 1834, PP- 2I 6~ 2 3)j Cretella's " Gli Ani- 
 mali sotto Processo," in Fanfulla della Domenica 
 (Florence, 1891, No. 65), all three based upon 
 the archival researches of Berriat-Saint-Prix and 
 Menabrea, and Soldan's " La Personification 
 des Animaux in Helvetia," in Monatsschrift der 
 Studentenverbindung Helvetia (VII. pp. 4-17), 
 which is a mere restatement of Osenbriiggen's 
 theory. 
 
 In conclusion the author desires to express his 
 sincere thanks to Dr. Laubmann, Director of the 
 Munich Hof- und Staatsbibliothek, as well as to 
 the other custodians of that library, for their 
 uniform kindness and courtesy in placing at his 
 disposal the printed and manuscript treasures 
 committed to their keeping.
 
 1 8 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BUGS AND BEASTS BEFORE THE LAW 
 
 IT is said that Bartholomew Chassenee, 1 a 
 distinguished French jurist of the sixteenth 
 century (born at Issy-1'Eveque in 1480), made 
 his reputation at the bar as counsel for some rats, 
 which had been put on trial before the ecclesi- 
 astical court of Autun on the charge of having 
 feloniously eaten up and wantonly destroyed the 
 barley-crop of that province. On complaint 
 formally presented by the magistracy, the official 
 or bishop's vicar, who exercised jurisdiction in 
 such cases, cited the culprits to appear on a 
 certain day and appointed Chassenee to defend 
 them. 
 
 In view of the bad repute and notorious guilt 
 of his clients, Chassenee was forced to employ 
 all sorts of legal shifts and chicane, dilatory 
 pleas and other technical objections, hoping 
 thereby to find some loophole in the meshes of 
 the law through which the accused might escape, 
 
 1 The name is also spelled Chassanee and Chasseneux. 
 In the Middle Ages, and even as late as the end of the 
 eighteenth century, the orthography of proper names was 
 very uncertain.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 19 
 
 or at least to defer and mitigate the sentence of 
 the judge. He urged, in the first place, that 
 inasmuch as the defendants were dispersed over 
 a large tract of country and dwelt in numerous 
 villages, a single summons was insufficient to 
 notify them all ; he succeeded, therefore, in 
 obtaining a second citation, to be published from 
 the pulpits of all the parishes inhabited by the 
 said rats. At the expiration of the considerable 
 time which elapsed before this order could be 
 carried into effect and the proclamation be duly 
 made, he excused the default or non-appearance 
 of his clients on the ground of the length and 
 difficulty of the journey and the serious perils 
 which attended it, owing to the unwearied 
 vigilance of their mortal enemies, the cats, who 
 watched all their movements, and, with fell 
 intent, lay in wait for them at every corner and 
 passage. On this point Chassenee addressed the 
 court at some length, in order to show that if 
 a person be cited to appear at a place, to which 
 he cannot come with safety, he may exercise the 
 right of appeal and refuse to obey the writ, even 
 though such appeal be expressly precluded in the 
 summons. The point was argued as seriously as 
 though it were a question of family feud between 
 Capulet and Montague in Verona or Colonna 
 and Orsini in Rome. 
 
 At a later period of his life Chassenee was 
 reminded of the legal principle thus laid down 
 and urged to apply it in favour of clients more
 
 2O The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 worthy of its protection than a horde of vagrant 
 rodents. In 1540 he was president of the judicial 
 assembly known as the Parliament of Provence 
 on a memorable occasion when the iniquitous 
 measure for the extirpation of heresy by exter- 
 minating the Waldenses in the villages of 
 Cabrieres and Merindol was under discussion. 
 One of the members of the tribunal, a gentleman 
 from Aries, Renaud d'Alleins, ventured to 
 suggest to the presiding officer that it would be 
 extremely unjust to condemn these unfortunate 
 heretics without granting them a hearing and 
 permitting an advocate to speak in their defence, 
 so that they might be surrounded by all the safe- 
 guards of justice, adding that the eminent jurist 
 had formerly insisted upon this right before the 
 court of Autun and maintained that even animals 
 should not be adjudged and sentenced without 
 having a proper person appointed to plead their 
 cause. Chassenee thereupon obtained a decree 
 from the king commanding that the accused 
 Waldenses should be heard ; but his death, 
 which occurred very soon afterwards, changed 
 the state of affairs and prevented whatever good 
 effects might have been produced by this simple 
 act of justice. [Cf . Desnoyers : Recherches, etc. 
 (vide Bibliography), p. 18.] 
 
 In the report of the trial published in the Themis 
 Jurisconsulte for 1820 (Tome I. pp. 194 sqq.) 
 by Berriat Saint-Prix, on the authority of the 
 celebrated Jacques Auguste De Thou, President
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 21 
 
 of the Parliament of Paris, the sentence pro- 
 nounced by the official is not recorded. But 
 whatever the judicial decision may have been, 
 the ingenuity and acumen with which Chassene'e 
 conducted the defence, the legal learning which 
 he brought to bear upon the case, and the elo- 
 quence of his plea enlisted the public interest 
 and established his fame as a criminal lawyer and 
 forensic orator. 
 
 Chassene"e is said to have been employed in 
 several cases of this kind, but no records of 
 them seem to have been preserved, although it is 
 possible that they may lie buried in the dusty 
 archives of some obscure provincial town in 
 France, once the seat of an ecclesiastical tribunal. 
 The whole subject, however, has been treated 
 by him exhaustively in a book entitled Consilium 
 primum, quod tractatus jure did potest, propter 
 multiplicem et reconditam doctrinam, ubi lucu- 
 lenter et accurate tractatur quaestio ilia: De 
 excommunicatione animalium insectorum. This 
 treatise, which is the first of sixty-nine consilia, 
 embodying opinions on various legal questions 
 touching the holding and transmission of pro- 
 perty, entail, loans, contracts, dowries, wills, and 
 kindred topics, and which holds a peculiar place 
 in the history of jurisprudence, was originally 
 published in 1531, and reprinted in 1581, and 
 again in 1588. The edition referred to in the 
 present work is the first reprint of 1581, a copy 
 of which is in the Royal Court and State Library 
 of Munich.
 
 22 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 This curious dissertation originated, as it 
 appears, in an application of the inhabitants of 
 Beaune to the ecclesiastical tribunal of Autun for 
 a decree of excommunication against certain 
 noxious insects called huberes or hurebers, pro- 
 bably a kind of locust or harvest-fly. The 
 request was granted, and the pernicious creatures 
 were duly accursed. Chassene"e now raises the 
 query whether such a thing may be rightfully 
 and lawfully done (sed an recte el de jure fieri 
 possit), and how it should be effected. " The 
 principal question," he says, " is whether one 
 can by injunction cause such insects to withdraw 
 from a place in which they are doing damage, 
 or to abstain from doing damage there, under 
 penalty of anathema and perpetual malediction. 
 And although in times past there has never been 
 any doubt on this point, yet I have thought that 
 the subject should be thoroughly examined anew, 
 lest I should seem to fall into the vice censured 
 by Cicero (De Off. I. 6), of regarding things 
 which we do not know as if they were well under- 
 stood by us, and therefore rashly giving them 
 our assent." He divides his treatise into five 
 parts, or rather discusses the subject under five 
 heads : " First, lest I may seem to discourse to 
 the populace, how are these our animals called in 
 the Latin language; secondly, whether these our 
 animals can be summoned ; thirdly, whether they 
 can be summoned by procurators, and, if they are 
 cited to appear personally, whether they can 
 appear by proxy, i. e. through procurators ap-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 23 
 
 pointed by the judge who summons them; 
 fourthly, what judge, whether layman or 
 ecclesiastic, is competent to try them, and how 
 he is to proceed against them and to pass and 
 execute sentence upon them ; fifthly, what con- 
 stitutes an anathema and how does it differ from 
 an excommunication." Chassenee's method of 
 investigation is not that of the philosophic 
 thinker, who marshals facts under general laws 
 and traces them to rational causes, but combines 
 that of the lawyer, who quotes precedents and 
 examines witnesses, with that of the theologian, 
 who balances authorities and serves us with texts 
 instead of arguments. He scrupulously avoids 
 all psychological speculation or metaphysical 
 reasoning, and simply aims to show that animals 
 have been tried, convicted, and sentenced by 
 civil and ecclesiastical courts, and that the com- 
 petence of these tribunals has been generally 
 recognized. 
 
 The documentary evidence adduced is drawn 
 from a great variety of sources : the scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testament, pagan poets 
 and philosophers, patristic theologians and 
 homilists, mediaeval hagiologists, Virgil, Ovid, 
 Pliny, Cicero, Cato, Aristotle, Seneca, Silius 
 Italicus, Boethius, Gregory the Great, Pico della 
 Mirandola, the laws of Moses, the prophecies of 
 Daniel, and the Institutes of Justinian are alike 
 laid under contribution and quoted as of equal 
 authority. All is fish that comes to his net out
 
 24 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 of his erudition, be it salmon or sea-urchin. If 
 twelve witnesses can be produced in favour of 
 a statement, and only two against it, his reason 
 bows to the will of the majority, and accepts 
 the proposition as proved. It must be added, 
 however, to his credit, that he proceeds in this 
 matter with strict impartiality and perfect recti- 
 tude, takes whatever evidence is at hand, and 
 never tries to pack the witness-box. 
 
 His knowledge of obscure and now utterly for- 
 gotten authors, secular and ecclesiastic, is 
 immense. Like so many scholars of his day he 
 was prodigiously learned, without being remark- 
 able for clearness or originality of thought. 
 Indeed, the vastness of his erudition seems rather 
 to have hampered than helped the vigorous 
 growth of his intellectual faculties. He often 
 indulges in logical subtilties so shallow in their 
 speciousness, that they ought not to deceive the 
 veriest smatterer in dialectics; and the reader is 
 constantly tempted to answer his laboured argu- 
 mentations, as Tristram Shandy's Uncle Toby 
 did the lucubrations of Corporal Trim, by 
 14 whistling half-a-dozen bars of Lillibullero." 
 The examples he adduces afford striking illustra- 
 tions of the gross credulity to which the strongly 
 conservative, precedent-mongering mind of the 
 jurisconsult is apt to fall an easy prey. The 
 habit of seeking knowledge and guidance exclu- 
 sively in the records and traditions of the past, in 
 the so-called " wisdom of ages," renders him
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 25 
 
 peculiarly liable to regard every act and utterance 
 of antiquity as necessarily wise and authoritative. 
 
 In proof of the power of anathemas, Chassenee 
 refers to the cursing of the serpent in the Garden 
 of Eden, causing it to go upon its belly for all 
 time ; David's malediction of the mountains of 
 Gilboa, so that they had neither rain nor dew ; 
 God's curse upon the city of Jericho, making its 
 strong walls fall before the blasts of trumpets; 
 and in the New Testament the withered fig-tree 
 of Bethany. The words of Jesus, " Every tree 
 that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
 and cast into the fire," he interprets, not merely 
 as the best means of getting rid of a cumberer of 
 the orchard, but as a condemnation and punish- 
 ment of the tree for its delinquencies, and adds : 
 " If, therefore, it is permitted to destroy an 
 irrational thing, because it does not produce 
 fruit, much more is it permitted to curse it, since 
 the greater penalty includes the less (cum si liceat 
 quid est plus, debet licere quid est minus). 
 
 An English professor of divinity, Richard 
 Chevenix Trench, justifies the withering of the 
 fruitless fig-tree on the same ground or, at least, 
 by a similar process of reasoning: "It was 
 punished, not for being without fruit, but for 
 proclaiming by the voice of those leaves that it 
 had such; not for being barren, but for being 
 false." According to this exegesis, it was the 
 telling of a wilful lie that " drew on it the curse." 
 The guilty fig is thus endowed with a moral
 
 26 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 character and made clearly conscious of the crime 
 for which it suffered the 'penalty of death : 
 " Almost as soon as the word of the Lord was 
 spoken, a shuddering fear may have run through 
 all the leaves of the tree, which was thus stricken 
 at the heart." As regards the culpability and 
 punishableness of the object, the modern divine 
 and the mediaeval jurist occupy the same stand- 
 point; only the latter, with a stricter judicial 
 sense, insists that there shall be no infliction of 
 punishment until the malefactor has been con- 
 victed by due process of law, and that he shall 
 enjoy all the safeguards which legal forms and 
 technicalities have thrown around him and under 
 whose covert even the vilest criminal has the 
 right to take refuge. The Anglican herme- 
 neutist, on the contrary, would justify the curse 
 and admit the validity of the anathema, although 
 it was only the angry expression of an unreason- 
 able impatience disappointed in not finding fruit 
 at the wrong season, " for the time of figs was 
 not yet." 
 
 A curious and characteristic specimen of the 
 absurd and illogical inferences, which Chassen6e 
 is constantly deducing from his texts, is the use 
 he makes of the passage in Virgil's first Georgic, 
 in which the poet remarks that " no religion has 
 forbidden us to draw off w r ater-courses for irrigat- 
 ing purposes, to enclose crops with fences, or to 
 lay snares for birds," all these things being 
 essential to successful husbandry. But from the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 27 
 
 right to snare birds, our jurisprudent infers the 
 right to excommunicate them, since " no snares 
 are stronger than the meshes of an anathema." 
 Far-fetched deductions and wretched twaddle of 
 this sort fill many pages of the famous lawyer's 
 dissertation. 
 
 Coming down to more recent times, Chassene"e 
 mentions several instances of the effectiveness of 
 anathemas, accepting as convincing testimony 
 the ecstacies of saints and the extravagant state- 
 ments of hagiologists without the slightest ex- 
 pression of doubt as to the truth of these legends. 
 Thus he relates how a priest anathematized an 
 orchard, because its fruits tempted the children 
 of his parish and kept them away from mass. 
 The orchard remained barren until, at the solici- 
 tation of the Duchess of Burgundy, the ban was 
 removed. In like manner the Bishop of Lau- 
 sanne freed Lake Leman from eels, which had 
 become so numerous as seriously to interfere with 
 boating and bathing; on another occasion in the 
 year 1451 the same ecclesiastic expelled from the 
 waters of this lake an immense number of enor- 
 mous blood-suckers, which threatened to destroy 
 all the large fish and were especially fatal to 
 salmon, the favourite article of food on fast-days. 
 This method of procedure was both cheap and 
 effective and, as Felix Malleolus informs us in his 
 Tractatus de Exorcismis (I), received the appro- 
 bation of all the learned doctors of the Univer- 
 sity of Heidelberg : omnes studii Heydelber-
 
 28 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 gensis Doctores hujusmodi ritus videntes et 
 legentes consenserunt. By the same agency an 
 abbot changed the sweet white bread of a Count 
 of Toulouse, who abetted and protected heresy, 
 into black, mouldy bread, so that he, who would 
 fain feed souls with corrupt spiritual food, was 
 forced to satisfy his bodily hunger with coarse 
 and unsavoury provender. No sooner was the 
 excommunication removed than the bread re- 
 sumed its original purity and colour. Egbert, 
 Bishop of Trier, anathematized the swallows, 
 which disturbed the devotions of the faithful by 
 their chirping and chattering, and sacrilegiously 
 defiled his head and vestments with their drop- 
 pings, when he was officiating at the altar. He 
 forbade them to enter the sacred edifice on pain 
 of death ; and it is still a popular superstition at 
 Trier, that if a swallow flies into the cathedral, 
 it immediately falls to the ground and gives up 
 the ghost. Another holy man, known as John 
 the Lamb, cursed the fishes, which had incurred 
 his anger, with results equally fatal to the finny 
 tribe. It is also related of the honey-tongued St. 
 Bernard, that he excommunicated a countless 
 swarm of flies, which annoyed the worshippers 
 and officiating priests in the abbey church of 
 Foigny, and lo, on the morrow they were, like 
 Sennacherib's host, "all dead corpses." William, 
 Abbot of St. Theodore in Rheims, who records 
 this miraculous event, states that as soon as the 
 execration was uttered, the flies fell to the floor
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 29 
 
 in such quantities that they had to be thrown out 
 with shovels (polls ejicientes). This incident, he 
 adds, was so well known that the cursing of the 
 flies of Foigny became proverbial and formed the 
 subject of a parable. [Vita S. Bernardi, auctore 
 Wilhelmo abbate S. Thod. Rhem. I. 11.] 
 According to the usual account, the malediction 
 was not so drastic in its operation and did not 
 cause the flies to disappear until the next day. 
 The rationalist, whose chill and blighting breath 
 is ever nipping the tender buds of faith, would 
 doubtless suggest that a sharp and sudden frost 
 may have added to the force and efficacy of the 
 excommunication. The saint resorted to this 
 severe and summary measure, says the monkish 
 chronicler, because the case was urgent and " no 
 other remedy was at hand." Perhaps this lack 
 of other means of relief may refer to the absence 
 of " deacons with fly-flaps," who, according to a 
 contemporary writer, were appointed " to drive 
 away the flies when the Pope celebrateth." 
 
 The island Reichenau in Lake Constance, 
 which derives its name from its fertility and is 
 especially famous for the products of its vine- 
 yards and its orchards, was once so infested by 
 venomous reptiles as to be uninhabitable by 
 human beings. Early in the eighth century, 
 as the legend goes, it was visited by St. Pir- 
 minius, and no sooner had he set foot upon it 
 than these creatures all crawled and wriggled 
 into the water, so that the surface of the lake was
 
 30 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 covered for three days and three nights with 
 serpents, scorpions and hideous worms. Peculiar 
 vermifugal efficacy was ascribed to the crosier 
 of St. Magnus, the apostle of Algau, which was 
 preserved in the cloister of St. Mang at Fiissen in 
 Bavaria, and from 1685 to 1770 w~as repeatedly 
 borne in solemn procession to Lucerne, Zug, 
 Schwyz and other portions of Switzerland for 
 the expulsion and extermination of rats, mice, 
 cockchafers and other insects. Sometimes 
 formulas of malediction were procured directly 
 from the pope, which, like saints' curses, could 
 be applied without legal formalities. Thus 
 in 1660 the inhabitants of Lucerne paid four 
 pistoles and one Roman thaler for a document of 
 this kind; on Nov. 15, 1731, the municipal 
 council of Thonou in Savoy resolved to join with 
 other parishes of that province to obtain from 
 Rome an excommunication against insects, the 
 expenses for which are to be assessed pro rata; 1 
 in 1740 the commune of Piuro purchased from 
 His Holiness a similar anathema; in the 
 same year the common council of Chiavenna 
 discussed the propriety of applying to Rome 
 for an execratory against beetles and bears ; 
 and in December 1752 it was proposed by 
 the same body to take like summary measures 
 
 1 " Item : a 6t6 delibe"re que la ville se joindra aux paroisses 
 de cette province qui voudront obtenir de Rome une excom- 
 munication centre les insects et que 1'on contribuera aux 
 frais au pro rata."
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 31 
 
 in order to get rid of a pest of rodents. In 
 1729, 1730 and 1749 the municipal council of 
 Lucerne ordered processions to be made on St. 
 Magnus' Day from the Church of St. Francis to 
 Peter's Chapel for the purpose of expelling 
 weevils. This custom was observed annually 
 from 1749 to 1798. The pompous ceremony has 
 been superseded in Protestant countries by an 
 officially appointed day of fasting and prayer. 
 
 In his " First Counsel " Chassenee not only 
 treats of methods of procedure, and gives forms 
 of plaints to be drawn up and tendered to the 
 tribunal by the injured party, as well as useful 
 hints to the pettifogger in the exercise of his 
 tortuous and tricky profession, but he also dis- 
 cusses many legal principles touching the 
 jurisdiction of courts, the functions of judges, 
 and other characteristic questions of civil, 
 criminal, and canonical law. Animals, he says, 
 should be tried by ecclesiastical tribunals, except 
 in cases where the penalty involves the shedding 
 of blood. An ecclesiastical judge is not 
 competent in causa sanguinis, and can impose 
 only canonical punishments, although he may 
 have jurisdiction in temporal matters and punish 
 crimes not involving a capital sentence. [Nam 
 judex ecclesiasticus in causa sanguinis non est 
 competens judex, licet habeat juris dictionem in 
 temporalibus et possit crimina poenam sanguinis 
 non existentia (exigentia is obviously the correct 
 reading) castigare. Cons. prim. IV. 5.] For
 
 32 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 this reason the Church never condemned 
 heretics to death, but, having decided that they 
 should die, gave them over to the secular power 
 for formal condemnation, usually under the 
 hollow and hypocritical pretence of recommend- 
 ing them to mercy. In the prosecution of 
 animals the summons was commonly published 
 from the parish pulpit and the whole judicial 
 process bore a distinctively ecclesiastical 
 character. In most cases the presiding judge or 
 official was the vicar of the parish acting as the 
 deputy of the bishop of the diocese. Occasion- 
 ally the curate officiated in this capacity. Some- 
 times the trial was conducted before a civil 
 magistrate under the authority of the Church, 
 or the matter was submitted to the adjudication 
 of a conjurer, who, however, appointed two 
 proctors to plead respectively for the plaintiff 
 and the defendant and who rendered his 
 verdict in due legal form. Indeed, the word 
 " conjurer " seems to have been used as a 
 popular designation of the person, whether 
 priest or layman, who exercised judicatory 
 functions in such trials, probably because, as a 
 rule, the sentence could be executed only by 
 conjuration or the invocation of supernatural 
 aid. 
 
 Another point, which strikes us very comic- 
 ally, but which had to be decided before the trial 
 could proceed, was whether the accused were to 
 be regarded as clergy or laity. Chassenee
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 33 
 
 thinks that there is no necessity of testing each 
 individual case, but that animals should be 
 looked upon as lay persons. This, he declares, 
 should be the general presumption ; but if any 
 one wishes to affirm that they have ordinem 
 clericatus and are entitled to benefit of clergy, 
 the burden of proof rests upon him and he is 
 bound to show it (deberct estud probare). Pro- 
 bably our jurist would have made an exception 
 in favour of the beetle, which entomologists call 
 clerus ; it is certain, at any rate, that if a bug 
 bearing this name had been brought to trial, the 
 learning and acuteness displayed in arguing the 
 point in dispute would have been astounding. 
 We laugh at the subtilties and quiddities of 
 mediaeval theologians, who seriously discussed 
 such silly questions as the digestibility of the 
 consecrated elements in the eucharist; but the 
 importance attached to these trivialities was not 
 so much the peculiarity of a single profession as 
 the mental habit of the age, the result of schol- 
 astic training and scholastic methods of investi- 
 gation, which tainted law no less than divinity. 
 Nevertheless the ancillary relations of all other 
 sciences and disciplines to theology render the 
 latter chiefly responsible for this fatal tendency. 
 Chassenee also makes a distinction between 
 punitive and preventive purposes in the prosecu- 
 tion of animals, between inflicting penalties 
 upon them for crimes committed and taking pre- 
 cautionary measures to keep them from doing 
 3
 
 34 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 damage. By this means he seeks to evade the 
 objection, that animals are incapable of commit- 
 ting crimes, because they are not endowed with 
 rational faculties. He then proceeds to show 
 that " things not allowable in respect to crimes 
 already committed are allowable in respect to 
 crimes about to be committed in order to prevent 
 them." Thus a layman may not arrest an 
 ecclesiastic for a delict fully consummated, but 
 may seize and detain him in order to hinder the 
 consummation of a delict. In such cases, an 
 inferior may coerce and correct a superior; even 
 an irrational creature may put restraint upon a 
 human being and hold him back from wrong- 
 doing. In illustration of this legal point he 
 cites an example from Holy Writ, where 
 " Balaam, the prophet and servant of the Most 
 High, was rebuked by a she-ass." 
 
 Chassen^e endeavours to clinch his argument 
 as usual by quoting biblical texts and adducing 
 incidents from legendary literature. The pro- 
 vince of zoo-psychology, which would have 
 furnished him with better material for the eluci- 
 dation of his subject, he leaves untouched, 
 simply because it was unknown to him. If crime 
 consists in the commission of deeds hurtful to 
 other sentient beings, knowing such actions to 
 be wrong, then the lower animals are certainly 
 guilty of criminal offences. It is a well-estab- 
 lished fact, that birds, beasts and insects, living 
 together in communities, have certain laws,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 35 
 
 which are designed to promote the general wel- 
 fare of the herd, the flock or the swarm, and the 
 violation of which by individual members they 
 punish corporally or capitally as the case may 
 require. It is likewise undeniable, that domestic 
 animals often commit crimes against man and 
 betray a consciousness of the nature of their acts 
 by showing fear of detection or by trying to 
 conceal what they have done. Man, too, recog- 
 nizes their moral responsibility by inflicting 
 chastisement upon them, and sometimes feels 
 justified in putting incorrigible offenders, a 
 vicious bull, a thievish cat or a sheep-killing 
 dog, summarily to death. Of course this kind 
 of punishment is chiefly preventive, nevertheless 
 it is provoked by acts already perpetrated and 
 is not wholly free from the element of retribu- 
 tive justice. Such a proceeding, however, is 
 arbitrary and autocratic, and if systematically 
 applied to human beings would be denounced 
 as intolerable tyranny. Chassene"e insists that 
 under no circumstances is a penalty to be im- 
 posed except by judicial decision nam poena 
 nunquam imponitur, nisi lex expresse dicat 
 and in support of this principle refers to the 
 apostle Paul, who declares that " sin is not 
 imputed when there is no law." He appears to 
 think that any technical error would vitiate the 
 whole procedure and reduce the ban of the 
 Church to mere brutum fnlmen. If he lays so 
 great stress upon the observance of legal forms,
 
 36 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 which in the criminal prosecution of brute 
 beasts strike us as the caricature and farce of 
 justice, it is because he deems them essential to 
 the effectiveness of an excommunication. The 
 slightest mispronunciation of a word, an in- 
 correct accentuation or false intonation in utter- 
 ing a spell suffices to dissolve the charm and 
 nullify the occult workings of the magic. The 
 lack of a single link breaks the connection and 
 destroys the binding force of the chain ; every- 
 thing must be " well-thought, well-said and 
 well-done," not ethically, but ritually, as pre- 
 scribed in the old Avestan formula : humata 
 hukhta huvarshta. All the mutterings and 
 posturings, which accompany the performance 
 of a Brahmanical sacrifice, or a Catholic mass, 
 or any other kind of incantation have their sig- 
 nificance, and none of them can be omitted with- 
 out marring the perfection of the ceremonial and 
 impairing its power. An anathema of animals 
 pronounced in accordance with the sentence 
 passed upon them by a tribunal, belongs to the 
 same category of conjurations and is rendered 
 nugatory by any formal defect or judicial irregu- 
 larity. 
 
 Sometimes the obnoxious vermin were 
 generously forewarned. Thus the grand-vicars 
 of Jean Rohin, Cardinal Bishop of Autun, 
 having been informed that slugs were devastat- 
 ing several estates in different parts of his 
 diocese, on the iyth of August, 1487, ordered
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 37 
 
 public processions to be made for three days 
 in every parish, and enjoined upon the said 
 slugs to quit the territory within this period 
 under penalty of being accursed. On the 8th 
 of September, 1488, a similar order was issued 
 at Beaujeu. The curates were charged to make 
 processions during the offices, and the slugs 
 were warned three times to cease from vexing 
 the people by corroding and consuming the 
 herbs of the fields and the vines, and to depart; 
 " and if they do not heed this our command, we 
 excommunicate them and smite them with our 
 anathema." In 1516, the official of Troyes pro- 
 nounced sentence on certain insects (adversus 
 brucos sen eurucas vel alia non dissimilia ani- 
 malia, Gallice urebecs, probably a species of 
 curculio), which laid waste the vines, and 
 threatened them with anathema, unless they 
 should disappear within six days. Here it is 
 expressly stated that a counsellor was assigned 
 to the accused, and a prosecutor heard in behalf 
 of the aggrieved inhabitants. As a means of 
 rendering the anathema more effective, the 
 people are also urged to be prompt and honest 
 in the payment of tithes. Chassenee, too, 
 endorses this view, and in proof of its correct- 
 ness refers to Malachi, where God promises to 
 rebuke the devourer for man's sake, provided all 
 the tithes are brought into the storehouse. 
 
 The archives of the old episcopal city of St. 
 Jean-de-Maurienne contain the original records
 
 38 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 of legal proceedings instituted against some 
 insects, which had ravaged the vineyards of St. 
 Julien, a hamlet situated on the route over Mt. 
 Cenis and famous for the excellence of its 
 vintage. The defendants in this case were a 
 species of greenish weevil (charancon) known to 
 entomologists as rychites auratus, and called by 
 different names, amblevin, beche, verpillion, in 
 different provinces of France. 
 
 Complaint was first made by the wine-growers 
 of St. Julien in 1545 before Francois Bonnivard, 
 doctor of laws. The procurator Pierre Falcon 
 and the advocate Claude Morel defended the 
 insects, and Pierre Ducol appeared for the plain- 
 tiffs. After the presentation and discussion of the 
 case by both parties, the official, instead of pass- 
 ing sentence, issued a proclamation, dated the 
 8th of May, 1546, recommending public prayers 
 and beginning with the following characteristic 
 preamble: "Inasmuch as God, the supreme 
 author of all that exists, hath ordained that the 
 earth should bring forth fruits and herbs (animas 
 vegetativas), not solely for the sustenance of 
 rational human beings, but likewise for the 
 preservation and support of insects, which fly 
 about on the surface of the soil, therefore it 
 would be unbecoming to proceed with rashness 
 and precipitance against the animals now actually 
 accused and indicted; on the contrary, it would 
 be more fitting for us to have recourse to the 
 mercy of heaven and to implore pardon for our
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 39 
 
 sins." Then follow instructions as to the manner 
 in which the public prayers are to be conducted 
 in order to propitiate the divine wrath. The 
 people are admonished to turn to the Lord with 
 pure and undivided hearts (ex toto et puro corde), 
 to repent of their sins with unfeigned contrition, 
 and to resolve to live henceforth justly and 
 charitably, and above all to pay tithes. High 
 mass is to be celebrated on three consecutive 
 days, namely on May 2oth, 2ist, and 22nd, and 
 the host to be borne in solemn procession with 
 songs and supplications round the vineyards. 
 The first mass is to be said in honour of the Holy 
 Spirit, the second in honour of the Blessed 
 Virgin, and the third in honour of the tutelar 
 saint of the parish. At least two persons of each 
 household are required to take part in these 
 religious exercises. A proces-verbal, signed by 
 the curate Romanet, attests that this programme 
 was fully carried out and that the insects soon 
 afterwards disappeared. 
 
 About thirty years later, however, the scourge 
 was renewed and the destructive insects were 
 actually brought to trial. The proceedings are 
 recorded on twenty-nine folia and entitled : 
 De actis scindicorum communitatis Sancti Julli- 
 ani agentium contra animalia bruta ad formam 
 muscarum volantia coloris viridis communi voce 
 appellata verpillions sen amblevins. The docu- 
 ments, which are still preserved in the archives 
 of St. Julien, were communicated by M. Victor
 
 40 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Dalbane, secretary of the commune, to M. Leon 
 Menebrea, who printed them in the appendix to 
 his volume : De I'origine de la forme et de 
 I'esprit des jugements rendus au moyen-dge 
 contre les animaux. Chambery, 1846. This 
 treatise appeared originally in the twelfth tome of 
 the Memoires de la Societe Royale Academique 
 de Savoie. 
 
 It may be proper to add that Menebrea's theory 
 of " the spirit, in which these judgments against 
 animals were given," is wholly untenable. He 
 maintains that "these procedures formed 
 originally only a kind of symbol intended to 
 revive the sentiment of justice among the masses 
 of the people, who knew of no right except might 
 and of no law except that of intimidation and 
 violence. In the Middle Ages, when disorder 
 reigned supreme, when the weak remained with- 
 out support and without redress against the 
 strong, and property was exposed to all sorts of 
 attacks and all forms of ravage and rapine, there 
 was something indescribably beautiful in the 
 thought of assimilating the insect of the field to 
 the masterpiece of creation and putting them on 
 an equality before the law. If man should be 
 taught to respect the home of the worm, how 
 much more ought he to regard that of his fellow- 
 man and learn to rule in equity." 
 
 This explanation is very fine in sentiment, but 
 expresses a modern, and not a mediaeval way of 
 thinking. The penal prosecution of animals,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 41 
 
 which prevailed during the Middle Ages, was by 
 no means peculiar to that period, but has been 
 frequently practised by primitive peoples and 
 savage tribes; neither was it designed to incul- 
 cate any such moral lesson as is here suggested, 
 nor did it produce any such desirable result. 
 So far from originating in a delicate and sensi- 
 tive sense of justice, it was, as will be more fully 
 shown hereafter, the outcome of an extremely 
 crude, obtuse, and barbaric sense of justice. It 
 was the product of a social state, in which dense 
 ignorance was governed by brute force, and is 
 not to be considered as a reaction and protest 
 against club-law, which it really tended to foster 
 by making a travesty of the administration of 
 justice and thus turning it into ridicule. It was 
 also in the interest of ecclesiastical dignities to 
 keep up this parody and perversion of a sacred 
 and fundamental institute of civil society, since 
 it strengthened their influence and extended their 
 authority by subjecting even the caterpillar and 
 the canker-worm to their dominion and control. 
 But to return to the records of the trial. On 
 the 1 3th of April, 1587, the case was laid 
 before " his most reverend lordship, the prince- 
 bishop of Maurienne, or the reverend lord his 
 vicar-general and official " by the syndics and 
 procurators, Fran9ois Amenet and Petremand 
 Bertrand, who, in the name of the inhabitants of 
 St. Julien, presented the following statement and 
 petition : " Formerly by virtue of divine services
 
 42 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 and earnest supplications the scourge and in- 
 ordinate fury of the aforesaid animals did cease ; 
 now they have resumed their depredations and 
 are doing incalculable injury. If the sins of men 
 are the cause of this evil,. it behoveth the repre- 
 sentatives of Christ on earth to prescribe such 
 measures as may be appropriate to appease the 
 divine wrath. Wherefore we the afore-men- 
 tioned syndics, Fran9ois Amenet and Petremand 
 Bertrand, do appear anew (ex Integra) and 
 beseech the official, first, to appoint another 
 procurator and advocate for the insects in place 
 of the deceased Pierre Falcon and Claude 
 Morel, and secondly, to visit the grounds and 
 observe the damage, and then to proceed with 
 the excommunication." 
 
 In compliance with this request, the dis- 
 tinguished Antoine Filliol was appointed pro- 
 curator for the insects, with a moderate fee 
 (salario moderate), and Pierre Rembaud their 
 advocate. The parties appeared before the 
 official on the 3Oth day of May and the case 
 was adjourned to the 6th of June, when the 
 advocate, Pierre Rembaud, presented his answer 
 to the declaration of the plaintiffs, showing that 
 their action is not maintainable and that they 
 should be nonsuited. After approving of the 
 course pursued by his predecessor in office, he 
 affirms that his clients have kept within their 
 right and not rendered themselves liable to 
 excommunication, since, as we read in the sacred
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 43 
 
 book of Genesis, the lower animals were created 
 before man, and God said to them : Let the 
 earth bring forth the living creature after his 
 kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the 
 earth after his kind; and he blessed them saying, 
 Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of 
 the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Now 
 the Creator would not have given this command, 
 had he not intended that these creatures should 
 have suitable and sufficient means of support; 
 indeed, he has expressly stated that to every 
 thing that creepeth upon the earth every green 
 herb has been given for meat. It is therefore 
 evident that the accused, in taking up their abode 
 in the vines of the plaintiffs, are only exercising 
 a legitimate right conferred upon them at the 
 time of their creation. Furthermore, it is absurd 
 and unreasonable to invoke the power of civil 
 and canonical law against brute beasts, which are 
 subject only to natural law and the impulses of 
 instinct. The argument urged by the counsel 
 for the plaintiffs, that the lower animals are made 
 subject to man, he dismisses as neither true in 
 fact nor pertinent to the present case. He 
 suggests that the complainants, instead of in- 
 stituting judicial proceedings, would do better 
 to entreat the mercy of heaven and to imitate the 
 Ninevites, who, when they heard the warning 
 voice of the prophet Jonah, proclaimed a fast 
 and put on sackcloth. In conclusion, he de- 
 mands that the petition of the plaintiffs be dis-
 
 44 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 missed, the monitorium revoked and annulled, 
 and all further proceedings stayed, to which end 
 the gracious office of the judge is humbly im- 
 plored (humiliter implorato benigno officio 
 judicis). 
 
 The case was adjourned to the i2th and 
 finally to the igth of June, when Petre- 
 mand Bertrand, the prosecuting attorney, pre- 
 sented a lengthy replication, of which the defend- 
 ants' advocate demanded a copy with due time 
 for deliberation. This request led to a further 
 adjournment till the 26th of June, but as 
 this day turned out to be a dies feriatus or holi- 
 day, no business could be transacted until the 
 27th, when the advocate of the commune, 
 Francois Fay (who seems to have taken the 
 place of Amenet, if he be not the same person), 
 in reply to the defendants' plea, argued that, 
 although the animals were created before man, 
 they were intended to be subordinate to him 
 and subservient to his use, and that this was, 
 indeed, the reason of their prior creation. They 
 have no raison d'etre except as they minister to 
 man, who was made to have dominion over them, 
 inasmuch as all things have been put under his 
 feet, as the Psalmist asserts and the apostle Paul 
 reiterates. On this point, he concludes, our 
 opponent has added nothing refutatory of the 
 views, which have been held from time im- 
 memorial by our ancestors ; we need only refer to 
 the opinions formerly expressed by the honour-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 45 
 
 able Hippolyte Ducol as satisfactory. The 
 advocate for the defence merely remarked that 
 he had not yet received the document ordered 
 on the igth of June, and the further con- 
 sideration of the case was postponed till the 
 4th of July. Antoine Filliol then made a 
 rejoinder to the plaintiffs' replication, denying 
 that the subordination of the lower animals to 
 man involves the right of excommunicating them, 
 and insisting upon his former position, which the 
 opposing counsel had not even attempted to dis- 
 prove, namely, that the lower animals are subject 
 solely to natural law, "a law originating in the 
 eternal reason and resting upon a basis as im- 
 mutable as that of the divine law of revelation, 
 since they are derived from the same source, 
 namely, the will and power of God." It is 
 evident, he adds, that the action brought by the 
 plaintiffs is not maintainable and that judgment 
 should be given accordingly. 
 
 On the 1 8th of July, the same parties 
 appear before the official of St. Jean-de-Mauri- 
 enne. The procurator of the insects demands 
 that the case be closed and the plaintiffs debarred 
 from drawing up any additional statements or 
 creating any further delay by the introduction 
 of irrelevant matter, and requests that a decision 
 be rendered on the documents and declarations 
 already adduced. The prosecuting attorney, 
 whose policy seems to have been to keep the suit 
 pending as long as possible, applies for a new 
 term (alium terminum), which was granted.
 
 46 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Meanwhile, in view of the law's long delay, 
 other measures were taken for the speedier 
 adjustment of the affair by compromise. On 
 the 2gth of June, 1587, a public meeting was 
 called at noon immediately after mass on the 
 great square of St. Julien, known as Parloir 
 d'Amont, to which all hinds and habitants 
 (manants et habitants) were summoned by the 
 ringing of the church bell to consider the pro- 
 priety and necessity of providing for the said 
 animals a place outside of the vineyards of St. 
 Julien, where they might obtain sufficient sus- 
 tenance without devouring and devastating the 
 vines of the said commune. This meeting 
 appears to have been held by the advice of the 
 plaintiffs' advocate, Francois Fay, and at the 
 suggestion of the official. A piece of ground 
 in the vicinity was selected and set apart as a sort 
 of insect enclosure, the inhabitants of St. Julien, 
 however, reserving for themselves the right to 
 pass through the said tract of land, " without 
 prejudice to the pasture of the said animals," and 
 to make use of the springs of water contained 
 therein, which are also to be at the service of the 
 said animals; they reserve furthermore the right 
 of working the mines of ochre and other mineral 
 colours found there, without doing detriment to 
 the means of subsistence of said animals, and 
 finally the right of taking refuge in this spot 
 in time of war or in case of like distress. The 
 place chosen is called La Grand Feisse and 
 described with the exactness of a topographical
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 47 
 
 survey, not only as to its location and dimen- 
 sions, but also as to the character of its foliage 
 and herbage. The assembled people vote to 
 make this appropriation of land and agree to 
 draw up a conveyance of it " in good form and 
 of perpetual validity," provided the procurator 
 and advocate of the insects may, on visitation 
 and inspection of the ground, express themselves 
 satisfied with such an arrangement; in witness 
 whereof the protocol is signed " L. Prunier, 
 curial," and stamped with the seal of the com- 
 mune. 
 
 But this attempt of the inhabitants to conciliate 
 the insects and to settle their differences by 
 mutual concessions did not put an end to the 
 litigation. On the 24th of July, an " Extract 
 from the Register of the Curiality of St. 
 Julien," containing the proceedings of the 
 public meeting, was submitted to the court by 
 Petremand Bertrand, procurator of the plaintiffs, 
 who called attention to the very generous offer 
 made by the commune and prayed the official to 
 order the grant to be accepted on the conditions 
 specified, and to cause the defendants to vacate 
 the vineyards and to forbid them to return to the 
 same on pain of excommunication. Antoine 
 Filliol, procurator of the insects, requested a 
 copy of the proces-verbal and time for delibera- 
 tion. The court complied with this request and 
 adjourned the case till " the first juridical day 
 after the harvest vacation," which fell on the
 
 48 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 nth of August, and again by common consent 
 till the 2Oth of the same month. 
 
 At this time, Charles Emanuel I., Duke of 
 Savoy, was preparing to invade the Marquisate 
 of Saluzzo, and the confusion caused by the 
 expedition of troops over Mt. Cenis interfered 
 with the progress of the trial, which was post- 
 poned till the 27th of August, and again, 
 since the passage of armed men was still going 
 on (actento tiansitu armigerorum), till the 3rd 
 of September, when Antoine Filliol declared that 
 he could not accept for his clients the offer made 
 by the plaintiffs, because the place was sterile and 
 neither sufficiently nor suitably supplied with 
 food for the support of the said animals; he 
 demanded, therefore, that the proposal be rejected 
 and the action dismissed with costs to the com- 
 plainants (petit agentes repelli cum expensis). 
 The " egregious Petremand Bertrand," in behalf 
 of the plaintiffs, denies the correctness of this 
 statement and avers that the spot selected and 
 set apart as an abode for the insects is admirably 
 adapted to this purpose, being full of trees and 
 shrubs of divers kinds, as stated in the convey- 
 ance prepared by his clients, all of which he is 
 ready to verify. He insists, therefore, upon an 
 adjudication in his favour. The official took the 
 papers of both parties and reserved his decision, 
 appointing experts, who should in the meantime 
 examine the place, which the plaintiffs had 
 proffered as an asylum for the insects, and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 49 
 
 submit a written report upon the fitness of the 
 same. 
 
 The final decision of the case, after such care- 
 ful deliberation and so long delay, is rendered 
 doubtful by the unfortunate circumstance that 
 the last page of the records has been destroyed 
 by rats or bugs of some sort. Perhaps the prose- 
 cuted weevils, not being satisfied with the results 
 of the trial, sent a sharp-toothed delegation into 
 the archives to obliterate and annul the judgment 
 of the court. At least nothing should be thought 
 incredible or impossible in the conduct of 
 creatures, which were deemed worthy of being 
 summoned before ecclesiastical tribunals and 
 which succeeded as criminals in claiming the 
 attention and calling forth the legal learning and 
 acumen of the greatest jurists of their day. 
 
 In the margin of the last page are some 
 interesting items of expenses incurred : " pro visi- 
 tatione III flor.," by which we are to understand 
 three florins to the experts, who were appointed 
 to visit the place assigned to the insects; then 
 " solverunt scindici Sancti Julliani incluso pro- 
 cessu Animalium sigillo ordinationum et pro 
 copia que competat in processu dictorum Anima- 
 lium omnibus inclusis XVI flor.," which may be 
 summed up as sixteen florins for clerical work 
 including seals; finally, "item pro sportulis do- 
 mini vicarii III flor.," three florins to the vicar, 
 who acted as the bishop's official and did not 
 receive a regular fee, but was not permitted to go 
 4
 
 50 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 away empty-handed. The date, which follows, 
 Dec. 20, 1587, may be assumed to indicate the 
 time at which the trial came to an end, after a 
 pendency of more than eight months. (Vide 
 Appendix A.) 
 
 In the legal proceedings just described, two 
 points are presented with great clearness and 
 seem to be accepted as incontestable : first, the 
 right of the insects to adequate means of sub- 
 sistence suited to their nature. This right was 
 recognized by both parties ; even the prosecution 
 did not deny it, but only maintained that they 
 must not trespass cultivated fields and destroy 
 the fruits of man's labour. The complainants 
 were perfectly willing to assign to the weevils an 
 uncultivated tract of ground, where they could 
 feed upon such natural products of the soil as 
 were not due to human toil and tillage. Secondly, 
 no one appears to have doubted for a moment 
 that the Church could, by virtue of its anathema, 
 compel these creatures to stop their ravages and 
 cause them to go from one place to another. 
 Indeed, a firm faith in the existence of this power 
 was the pivot on which the whole procedure 
 turned, and without it, the trial would have been 
 a dismal farce in the eyes of all who took part 
 in it. 
 
 It is related in the chronicles of an ancient 
 abbey (Le Pere Rochex: Gloire de I'Abbaye et 
 Vallee de la Novalaise), that St. Eldrad com- 
 manded the snakes, which infested the environs
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 51 
 
 of a priory in the valley of Briancon, to depart, 
 and, taking a staff in his hand, conducted them 
 to a desert place and shut them up in a cave, 
 where they all miserably perished. Perhaps the 
 serpent, which suffered Satan to take possession 
 of its seductive form and thus played such a 
 fatal part in effecting the fall of man and in intro- 
 ducing sin into the world, may have been re- 
 garded as completely out of the pale and protec- 
 tion of law, and as having no rights which an 
 ecclesiastical excommunicator or a wonder-work- 
 ing saint would be bound to respect. As a rule, 
 however, such an arbitrary abuse of miraculous 
 power to the injury or destruction of God's 
 creatures was considered illegal and unjustifiable, 
 although irascible anchorites and other holy men 
 under strong provocation often gave way to it. 
 Mediaeval jurists frowned upon summary mea- 
 sures of this sort, just as modern lawyers con- 
 demn the practice of lynch-law as mobbish 
 and essentially seditious, and only to be excused 
 as a sudden outburst of public indignation at 
 some exceptionally brutal outrage. 
 
 Properly speaking, animals cannot be excom- 
 municated, but only anathematized; just as 
 women, according to old English law, having 
 no legal status of their own and not being bound 
 in frankpledge as members of the decennary or 
 tithable community, could not be outlawed, but 
 only " waived " or abandoned. This form of 
 ban, while differing theoretically from actual
 
 52 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 outlawry, was practically the same in its effects 
 upon the individual subjected to it. Excom- 
 munication is, as the etymology of the word 
 implies, the exclusion from the communion of the 
 Church and from whatever spiritual or temporal 
 advantages may accrue to a person from this 
 relation. It is one of the consequences of an 
 anathema, but is limited in its operation to 
 members of the ecclesiastical body, to which the 
 lower animals do not belong. This was the 
 generally accepted view, and is the opinion main- 
 tained by Gaspard Bailly, advocate and coun- 
 cillor of the Sovereign Senate of Savoy, in his 
 Traite des Monitoires, avec un Plaidoyer contre 
 les Insects, printed at Lyons in 1668, but it has 
 not always been held by writers on this subject, 
 some of whom do not recognize this distinction 
 between anathema and excommunication on the 
 authority of many passages of Holy Writ, 
 affirming that, as the whole creation was cor- 
 rupted by the fall, so the atonement extends 
 to all living creatures, which are represented 
 as longing for the day of their redemption and 
 regeneration. 
 
 One of the strong points made by the counsel 
 for the defence in prosecutions of this kind was 
 that these insects were sent to punish man for his 
 sins, and should therefore be regarded as agents 
 and emissaries of the Almighty, and that to 
 attempt to destroy them or to drive them away 
 would be to fight against God (s'en prendre a
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 53 
 
 Dieu). Under such circumstances, the proper 
 thing to do would be, not to seek legal redress 
 and to treat the noxious creatures as criminals, 
 but to repent and humbly to entreat an angry 
 Deity to remove the scourge. This is still the 
 standpoint of Christian orthodoxy, Protestant as 
 well as Catholic, and the argument applies with 
 equal force to the impious and atheistic substitu- 
 tion of Paris green and the chlorate of lime for 
 prayer and fasting as exterminators of potato- 
 bugs. The modern, like the mediaeval horti- 
 culturist may ward off devouring vermin from his 
 garden by the use of ashes, but he strews them 
 on his plants instead of sprinkling them on his 
 own head, and thus indicates to what extent 
 scientific have superseded theological methods in 
 the practical affairs of life. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, the " angelic doctor," in 
 his Summa Theologies raises the query, whether 
 it is permissible to curse irrational creatures 
 (utrum liceat irrationabiles creaturas adjurare). 
 He states, in the first place, that curses and bless- 
 ings can be pronounced only upon such things as 
 are susceptible of receiving evil or good impres- 
 sions from them, or in other words, upon sentient 
 and rational beings, or upon irrational creatures 
 and insentient things in their relation to rational 
 beings, so that the latter are the objects ulti- 
 mately aimed at and favourably or unfavourably 
 affected. Thus God cursed the earth, because it 
 is essential to a man's subsistence; Jesus cursed
 
 54 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 the barren fig-tree symbolizing the Jews, who 
 made a great show of leafage in the form of rites 
 and ceremonies, but bore no fruits of righteous- 
 ness; Job cursed the day on which he was born, 
 because he took from his mother's womb the 
 taint of original sin ; David cursed the rocks and 
 mountains of Gilboa, because they were stained 
 with the blood of " the beauty of Israel " ; in like 
 manner the Lord sends locusts and blight and 
 mildew to destroy the harvests, because these are 
 intimately connected with the happiness of man- 
 kind, whose sins he wishes to punish. 
 
 It is laid down as a legal maxim by mediaeval 
 jurisprudents that no animal devoid of under- 
 standing can commit a fault (nee enim potest 
 animal injuriam fecisse quod sensu caret). This 
 doctrine is endorsed by the great theologian and 
 scholastic Thomas of Aquino. If we regard the 
 lo\ver animals, he says, as creatures coming from 
 the hand of God and employed by him as 
 agents for the execution of his judgments, then 
 to curse them would be blasphemous; if, on the 
 other hand, we curse them secundem se, i.e. 
 merely as brute beasts, then the malediction is 
 odious and vain and therefore unlawful (est 
 odiosum et vanum et per consequens illicitum). 
 There is, however, another ground, on which the 
 right of excommunication or anathematization 
 may be asserted and fully vindicated, namely, 
 that the lower animals are satellites of Satan 
 " instigated by the powers of hell and therefore
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 55 
 
 proper to be cursed," as the Doctor angelicus 
 puts it. Chassenee refers to this op'inion in the 
 treatise already cited (I. 75), and adds " the 
 anathema then is not to be pronounced against 
 the animals as such, but should be hurled in- 
 ferentially (per modum conclusionis) at the devil, 
 who makes use of irrational creatures to our 
 detriment." This notion seems to have been 
 generally accepted in the Middle Ages, and the 
 fact that evil spirits are often mentioned in the 
 Bible metaphorically or symbolically as animals 
 and assumed to be incarnate in the adder, the 
 asp, the basilisk, the dragon, the lion, the levia- 
 than, the serpent, the scorpion, etc., was con- 
 sidered confirmatory of this view. 
 
 But not all animals were regarded as diabolical 
 incarnations ; on the contrary, many were revered 
 as embodiments and emblems of divine perfec- 
 tions. In a work entitled Le Liure du Roy 
 Modus et de la Reyne Ratio (The Book of King 
 Mode and Queen Reason), which, as the colo- 
 phon records, was " printed at Chambery by 
 Anthony Neyret in the year of grace one thou- 
 sand four hundred and eighty-six on the thirtieth 
 day of October," King Mode discourses on 
 falconry and venery in general. Queen Reason 
 brings forward, in reply to these rather con- 
 ventional commonplaces, " several fine moral- 
 ities," and dilates on the natural and mystic 
 qualities of animals, which she divides into two 
 classes, sweet beasts (bestcs doulces) and stenchy
 
 56 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 beasts (bestes puantes). Foremost among the 
 sweet beasts stands that which Milton character- 
 izes as 
 
 " Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind." 
 
 According to the Psalmist, the hart panting 
 after the water-brooks represents the soul thirst- 
 ing for the living God and is the type of religious 
 ardour and aspiration. It plays an important 
 part in the legends of saints, acts as their guide, 
 shows them where holy relics are concealed, and 
 causes St. Eustace and St. Hubert to abandon 
 the chase and to lead lives of pious devotion by 
 appearing to them with a luminous cross between 
 its antlers. The ten branches of its horns 
 symbolize the ten commandments of the Old 
 Testament and signify in the Roman ritual the 
 ten fingers of the outstretched hand of the priest 
 as he works the perpetual miracle of transub- 
 stantiation of the eucharist. 
 
 Chief of the stenchy beasts is the pig. In 
 paganism, which to the Christians was merely 
 devil-worship, the boar was an object of peculiar 
 adoration ; for this reason the farrow of the sow 
 is supposed to number seven shotes, correspond- 
 ing to the seven deadly sins. To the same class 
 of offensive beasts belong the wolf, typical of bad 
 spiritual shepherds, and the fox, which is de- 
 scribed as follows : " Reynard is a beast of small 
 size, with red hair, a long bushy tail and an evil 
 physiognomy, for his visage is thin and sharp,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 57 
 
 his eyes deep-set and piercing, his ears small, 
 straight and pointed; moreover he is deceitful 
 and tricky above all other beasts and exceedingly 
 malicious." " We are all," adds Queen Reason 
 in a moralizing strain, " more or less of the 
 brotherhood of Saint Fausset, whose influence is 
 now-a-days quite extended." Among birds the 
 raven is pre-eminently a malodorous creature and 
 imp of Satan, whereas the dove is a sweet beast 
 and the chosen vessel for the outpouring of the 
 Holy Spirit, the form in which the third person 
 of the Trinity became incarnate. 
 
 This division of beasts corresponds in prin- 
 ciple to that which is given in the Avesta, and 
 according to which all animals are regarded as 
 belonging either to the good creation of Ahura- 
 mazda or to the evil creation of Angro-mainyush. 
 The world is the scene of perpetual conflict 
 between these hostile forces summed up in the 
 religion and ethics of Zarathushtra as the trinity 
 of the good thought, the good word, and the 
 good deed (humata, hukhia, huvarshta), which 
 are to be fostered in opposition to the evil 
 thought, the evil word, and the evil deed (dush- 
 mata, duzhukhta, duzhvarshta), which are to be 
 constantly combated and finally suppressed. 
 Every man is called upon by the Iranian prophet 
 to choose between these contraries ; and not only 
 the present and future state of his own soul, the 
 complexion of his individual character, but also 
 the welfare of the whole world, the ultimate
 
 58 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 destiny of the universe, depend, to no inconsider- 
 able extent, upon his choice. His thoughts, 
 words, and deeds do not cease with the immediate 
 effect which they are intended to produce, but, 
 like force in the physical world, are persistent 
 and indestructible. As the very slightest impulse 
 given to an atom of matter communicates itself 
 to every other atom, and thus disturbs the 
 equilibrium of the globe the footfall of a-child 
 shaking the earth to its centre so the influence 
 of every human life, however small, contributes 
 to the general increase and ascendency of either 
 good or evil, and helps to determine which of 
 these principles shall ultimately triumph. In the 
 universal strife of these " mighty opposites," the 
 vicious are the allies of the devil ; w y hile the 
 virtuous are not merely engaged in working out 
 their own salvation, but have also the ennobling 
 consciousness of being fellow-combatants with the 
 Deity, who needs and appreciates their services 
 in overcoming the adversary. This sense of 
 solidarity with the Best and the Highest imparts 
 additional elevation and peculiar dignity to 
 human aims and actions, and lends to devotion a 
 warmth of sympathy and fervour of enthusiasm 
 springing from personal attachment and loyalty, 
 which it is difficult for the Religion of Humanity 
 to inspire. The fact, too, that evil exists in the 
 world, not by the will and design of the Good 
 Being, but in spite of him, and that all his 
 powers are put forth to eradicate it, while detract-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 59 
 
 ing from his omnipotence, frees him from all 
 moral obliquity and exalts his character for 
 benevolence, thus rendering him far more worthy 
 of love and worship and a much better model for 
 human imitation than that "dreadful idealiza- 
 tion of wickedness " which is called God in the 
 Calvinistic creed. The idea that the humblest 
 person may, by the purity and rectitude of his 
 life, not only strengthen himself in virtue, but 
 also increase the actual aggregate of goodness in 
 the universe and even endue the Deity with 
 greater power and aggressive energy in subdu- 
 ing and extirpating evil, is surely a sublime 
 thought and a source of lofty inspiration and 
 encouragement in well-doing, although it has 
 been degraded by Parsi Dasturs as all grand 
 conceptions and ideals are apt to be under 
 priestly influences into a ridiculous and childish 
 hatred of snakes, scorpions, frogs, lizards, water- 
 rats, and other animals supposed to have been 
 produced by Angro-mainyush. 
 
 Plato held a similar theory of creation, regard- 
 ing it not as the manifestation of pure benevo- 
 lence endowed with almighty power, but rather 
 as the expression of perfect goodness working at 
 disadvantage in an intractable material, which 
 by its inherent stubbornness prevented the full 
 embodiment and realization of the original pur- 
 pose and desire of the Creator or Cosmourgos, 
 who was therefore obliged to content himself 
 with what was, under the circumstances, the
 
 60 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 only possible, but by no means the best imagin- 
 able, world. The Manicheans attributed the 
 same unsatisfactory result to the activity of an 
 evil principle, which thwarted the complete 
 actualization of the designs of the Deity. So 
 conspicuous, indeed, is the defectiveness of nature 
 as a means of promoting the highest conceivable 
 human happiness, so marked and manifold are 
 the causes of suffering in all spheres of sentient 
 existence, and so often do the elements seem to 
 conspire for the destruction of mankind, raging 
 relentlessly like a wild beast 
 
 "Red in tooth and claw 
 With ravin," 
 
 that every cosmogony has been compelled to 
 assume the persistent intervention of some 
 malignant spirit or perverse agency as the only 
 rational explanation of such a condition of 
 things. The orthodox Christianity of to-day 
 gives over the earth entirely to the sovereignty 
 of Satan, the successful usurper of Eden, and 
 instead of bidding the righteous to look forward 
 to the final re-enthronement and absolute 
 supremacy of truth and goodness in this world 
 
 as the 
 
 " One far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves," 
 
 consoles them with the vague promise of com- 
 pensation in a future state of being. Even this 
 remote prospect of redemption is confined to a 
 select few; not only is the earth destined to be
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 61 
 
 burned with fire on account of its utter corrup- 
 tion, but the great majority of its inhabitants are 
 doomed to eternal torments in the abode of evil 
 spirits. 
 
 Scientific research also leads to the same con- 
 clusions in respect to the incompleteness of 
 Nature's handiwork, which it is the function of 
 art and culture to amend and improve. Every- 
 where the correcting hand and contriving brain 
 of man are needed to eliminate the worthless and 
 noxious productions, in which Nature is so 
 fatally prolific, and to foster and develop those 
 that are useful and salutary, thus beautifying 
 and ennobling all forms of vegetable and 
 animal life. By a like process man himself has 
 attained his present pre-eminence. Through 
 long ages of strife and struggle he has emerged 
 from brutishness and barbarism, and rising by 
 a slow, spiral ascent, scarcely perceptible for 
 generations, has been able gradually to 
 
 "Move upward, working out the beast, 
 And let the ape and tiger die." 
 
 The more man increases in wisdom and intel- 
 lectual capacity, the more efficient he becomes as 
 a co-worker with the good principle. At the same 
 time, every advance which he makes in civiliza- 
 tion brings with it some new evil for him to 
 overcome; or, as the Parsi would express it 
 mythologically, every conquest achieved by 
 Ahuramazda and his allies stimulates Angro-
 
 62 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 mainyush and his satellites to renewed exer- 
 tions, who convert the most useful discoveries, 
 like dynamite, into instruments of diabolical 
 devastation. The opening of the Far West in 
 the United States to agriculture and commerce, 
 and the completion of the Pacific Railroad, not 
 only served to multiply and diffuse the gifts of 
 the beneficent and bountiful spirit (spento main- 
 yush}^ but also facilitated the propagation and 
 spread of the plagues of the grasshopper and the 
 Colorado beetle. The power of destruction in- 
 sidiously concealed in the minutest insect organ- 
 ism often exceeds that of the tornado and the 
 earthquake, and baffles the most persistent 
 efforts of human ingenuity to resist it. The 
 genius and energy of Pasteur were devoted for 
 years to the task of detecting and destroying a 
 microscopic parasite, which threatened to ruin 
 for ever the silk industry of France; and the 
 Phylloxera and Doryphora still continue to 
 ravage with comparative impunity the vineyards 
 of Europe and the potato-fields of America, 
 defying at once all the appliances of science for 
 their extermination and all the attempts of 
 casuistic theology to reconcile such scourges 
 with a perfectly benevolent and omnipotent 
 Creator and Ruler of the Universe. It is the 
 observation of phenomena like these that con- 
 firms the modern Parsi in the faith of his fathers, 
 and reveals to him, in the operations of nature 
 and the conflicts of life, unquestionable evidences
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 63 
 
 of a contest between warring elements personi- 
 fied as Hormazd and Ahriman, the ultimate 
 issue of which is to be the complete triumph of 
 the former and the consequent purification and 
 redemption of the world from the curse of evil. 
 The Parsi, however, recognizes no Saviour, and 
 repudiates as absurd and immoral any scheme of 
 atonement whereby the burden of sin can be 
 shifted from the shoulders of the guilty to those 
 of an innocent, vicarious victim. Every person 
 must be redeemed by his own good thoughts, 
 words, and deeds, as creation must be redeemed 
 by the good thoughts, words, and deeds of the 
 race. After death, the character of each indi- 
 vidual thus formed appears to him, either in the 
 form of a beautiful and brilliant maiden, who 
 leads him over the Chinvad (or gatherer's) 
 bridge, into the realms of everlasting light, or in 
 the form of a foul harlot, who thrusts him down 
 into regions of eternal gloom. 
 
 But to return from this digression ; it is not 
 only in the Venidad that certain classes of 
 animals are declared to be creations of the arch- 
 fiend, and therefore embodiments of devils; 
 additional proofs of this doctrine were derived 
 by mediaeval writers from biblical and classical 
 sources. A favourite example was the meta- 
 morphosis of Nebuchadnezzar, who, when given 
 over to Satan, dwelt with the beasts of the field 
 and ate grass as oxen, while his hair grew like 
 eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws.
 
 64 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Still more numerous and striking instances of 
 this kind were drawn from pagan mythology, 
 which, being of diabolical origin, would natur- 
 ally be prolific of such phenomena. Thus, 
 besides centaurs and satyrs, "dire chimeras" 
 and other " delicate monsters," there were 
 hybrids like the semi-dragon Cecrops and trans- 
 formations by which lo became a heifer, 
 Dsedalion a sparrow-hawk, Corone a crow, 
 Actaeon a stag, Lyncus a lynx, Masra a dog, 
 Calisto a she-bear, Antigone a stork, Arachne a 
 spider, Iphigenia a roe, Talus a partridge, Itys 
 a pheasant, Tereus Ascalaphus and Nyctimene 
 owls, Philomela a nightingale, Progne a 
 swallow, Cadmus and his spouse Harmonia 
 snakes, Decertis a fish, Galanthis a weasel, and 
 the warriors of Diomedes birds, while the com- 
 panions of Ulysses were changed by Circe, the 
 prototype of the modern witch, into swine. All 
 these metamorphoses are adduced as the results 
 of Satanic agencies and proofs of the tendency of 
 evil spirits to manifest themselves in bestial 
 forms. 
 
 Towards the end of the ninth century the 
 region about Rome was visited by a dire plague 
 of locusts. A reward was offered for their 
 extermination and the peasants gathered and 
 destroyed them by millions; but all efforts were 
 in vain, since they propagated faster than it was 
 possible to kill them. Finally Pope Stephen 
 VI. prepared great quantities of holy water and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 65 
 
 had the whole country sprinkled with it, where- 
 upon the locusts immediately disappeared. The 
 formula used in consecrating the water and 
 devoting it to this purpose implies the diabolical 
 character of the vermin against which it was 
 directed: "I adjure thee, creature water, I 
 adjure thee by the living God, by Him, who 
 at the beginning separated thee from the dry 
 land, by the true God, w 7 ho caused thee to 
 fertilize the garden of Eden and parted thee 
 into four heads, by Him, who at the marriage 
 of Cana changed thee into wine, I adjure thee 
 that thou mayst not suffer any imp or phantom 
 to abide in thy substance, that thou mayst be 
 indued with exorcising power and become a 
 source of salvation, so that when thou art 
 sprinkled on the fruits of the field, on vines, on 
 trees, on human habitations in the city or in 
 the country, on stables, or on flocks, or if any 
 one may touch or taste thee, thou shalt become 
 a remedy and a relief from the wiles of Satan, 
 that through thee plagues and pestilence may be 
 driven away, that through contact with thee 
 weevils and caterpillars, locusts and moles may 
 be dispersed and the maliciousness of all visible 
 and invisible powers hostile to man may be 
 brought to nought." In the prayers which 
 follow, the water is entreated to " preserve the 
 fruits of the earth from insects, mice, moles, 
 serpents and other foul spirits." 
 
 This subject was treated in a lively and enter- 
 5
 
 66 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 taining manner by a Jesuit priest, Pere 
 Bougeant, in a book entitled Amusement Philo- 
 sophique sur le Langage des Bestes, which was 
 written in the form of a letter addressed to a 
 lady and published at Paris in 1739. In the 
 first place, the author refers to the intelligence 
 shown by animals and refutes the Cartesian 
 theory that they are mere machines or animated 
 automata. This tenet, we may add, was not 
 original with Descartes, but was set forth at 
 length by a Spanish physician, Gomez Pereira, 
 in a bulky Latin volume bearing the queer 
 dedicatory title : " Antoniana Margarita opus 
 nempe physicis, medicis ac theologis non minus 
 utile quam necessarium," and printed in 1554, 
 nearly a century before the publication of 
 Descartes' Meditationes de prima philosophia 
 and Principia philosophiae, which began a new 
 epoch in the history of philosophy. 
 
 If animals are nothing but ingenious pieces 
 of mechanism, argues the Jesuit father, then the 
 feelings of a man towards his dog would not 
 differ from those which he entertains towards 
 his watch, and they would both inspire him 
 with the same kind of affection. But such is 
 not the case. Even the strictest Cartesian would 
 never think of petting his chronometer as he 
 pets his poodle, or would expect the former to 
 respond to his caresses as the latter does. Practic- 
 ally he subverts his own metaphysical system by 
 the distinction which he makes between them,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 67 
 
 treating one as a machine and the other as a 
 sentient being, endowed with mental powers 
 and passions corresponding, in some degree, to 
 those which he himself possesses. We infer 
 from our own individual consciousness that 
 other persons, who act as we do, are free and 
 intelligent agents, as we claim to be. The 
 same reasoning applies to the lower animals, 
 whose manifestations of joy, sorrow, hope, fear, 
 desire, love, hatred and other emotions, akin 
 to those passing in our own minds, prove that 
 there is within them a spiritual principle, which 
 does not differ essentially from the human soul. 
 But this conclusion, he adds, is contrary to 
 the teachings of the Christian religion, since it 
 involves the immortality of animal souls and 
 necessitates some provision for their reward or 
 punishment in a future life. If they are capable 
 of merits and demerits and can incur praise and 
 blame, then they are worthy of retribution here- 
 after and there must be a heaven and a hell 
 prepared for them, so that the pre-eminence 
 of a man over a beast as an object of God's 
 mercy or wrath is lost. " Beasts, in that case, 
 would be a species of man or men a species 
 of beast, both of which propositions are incom- 
 patible with the teachings of religion." The 
 only means of reconciling these views, endowing 
 animals with intellectual sense and immortal 
 souls without running counter to Christian 
 dogmas, is to assume that they are incarnations 
 of evil spirits.
 
 68 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Origen held that the scheme of redemption 
 embraced also Satan and his satellites, who 
 would be ultimately converted and restored to 
 their primitive estate. Several patristic theo- 
 logians endorsed this notion, but the Church 
 rejected it as heretical. The devils are, there- 
 fore, from the standpoint of Catholic ortho- 
 doxy, irrevocably damned and the blood of 
 Christ has made no atonement for them. But, 
 although their fate is sealed their torments have 
 not yet begun. If a man dies in his sins,, his 
 soul, as soon as it departs from his body, 
 receives its sentence and goes straight to hell. 
 The highest ecclesiastical authorities have 
 decided that this is not true of devils, who, 
 although condemned to everlasting fire, do not 
 enter upon their punishment until after the 
 judgment-day. This view is supported by 
 many passages and incidents of Holy Writ. 
 Thus Christ declares that, when the Son of man 
 shall come in his glory, he shall say unto them 
 on his left hand, " Depart from me, ye cursed, 
 into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and 
 his angels." Here it is not stated that the 
 devils are already burning, but that the fire has 
 been " prepared " for them, a form of expres- 
 sion which leads us to infer that they were not 
 yet in it. Again the devils, which Christ drove 
 out of the two "exceeding fierce" demoniacs, 
 protested against such interference, saying, 
 " Art thou come hither to torment us before the 
 time?" This question has no significance,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 69 
 
 unless we suppose that they had a right to 
 inhabit such living beings as had been assigned 
 to them, until the time of their torment should 
 come on the last day. Pere Bougeant is 
 furthermore of the opinion that, when these 
 devils were sent miraculously and therefore 
 abnormally into the swine, they came into con- 
 flict with the devils already in possession of the 
 pigs, and thus caused the whole herd to run 
 violently down a steep place into the sea. Even 
 a hog, he thinks, could not stand it to harbour 
 more than one devil at a time, and would be 
 driven to suicide by having an intrinsic and 
 superfluous demon conjured into it. A still more 
 explicit and decisive declaration on this point 
 is found in the Epistle of Jude and the Second 
 Epistle of Peter, where it is stated that the angels 
 which kept not their first estate the Lord hath 
 reserved in everlasting chains under darkness 
 unto the judgment of the great day. These 
 words are to be understood figuratively as 
 referring to the irrevocableness of their doom 
 and the durance vile to which they are mean- 
 while subjected. That they are held in some 
 sort of temporary custody and are not actually 
 undergoing, but still awaiting the punishment, 
 which divine justice has imposed upon them, the 
 sacred scriptures and the teachings of the Church 
 leave no manner of doubt. 
 
 Now the question arises as to what these 
 legions of devils are doing in the meantime.
 
 jo The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Some of them are engaged in " going to and 
 fro in the earth and walking up and down in it," 
 in order to spy out and take advantage of 
 human infirmities. God himself makes use of 
 them to test the fealty of men and their 
 power of holding fast to their integrity under 
 severe temptations, just as the Creator made 
 fossils and concealed them in the different strata 
 of the earth, in order to see whether Christian 
 faith in the truth of revelation would be strong 
 enough to resist the seductions of " science 
 falsely so called." Other devils enter into living 
 human bodies and give themselves up to evil 
 enchantments as wizards and witches ; others still 
 reanimate corpses or assume the form and 
 features of the dead and wander about as ghosts 
 and hobgoblins. Not only were pagans re- 
 garded by the Christian Church as devil-wor- 
 shippers and exorcised before being baptized, 
 but it is also a logical deduction from the doc- 
 trine of original sin, that a devil takes posses- 
 sion of every child as soon as it is born and 
 remains there until expelled by an ecclesiastical 
 functionary, who combines the office of priest 
 with that of conjurer and is especially appointed 
 for this purpose. Hence arose the necessity of 
 abrenunciation, as it was called, which preceded 
 baptism in the Catholic Church and which 
 Luther and the Anglican reformers retained. 
 Before the candidate was christened he was 
 exorcised and adjured personally, if an adult, or
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 71 
 
 through a sponsor, if an infant, to " forsake the 
 devil and all his works." These words, which 
 still hold a place in the ritual, but are now 
 repeated in a perfunctory manner by persons, 
 who have no conception of the magic potency 
 formerly ascribed to them, are a survival of the 
 old formula of exorcism. In the seventeenth 
 century there was a keen competition between 
 the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran clergy in 
 casting out devils, the former claiming that to 
 them alone had been transmitted the exorcising 
 power conferred by Christ upon his apostles. 
 The Protestant churches finally gave up the 
 hocus-pocus and during the eighteenth century 
 it fell into general discredit and disuse among 
 them, although some of the stiffest and most 
 conservative Lutherans never really abandoned 
 it in principle and have recently endeavoured to 
 revive it in practice. 
 
 The Catholic Church, on the contrary, still 
 holds that men, women and cattle may be 
 possessed by devils and prescribes the means 
 of their expulsion. In a work entitled Rituale 
 ecclesiasticum ad usnm clericorum S. Fransisci 
 by Pater Franz Xaver Lohbauer (Munich, 1851), 
 there is a chapter on the mode of helping those 
 who are afflicted by demons (Modus juvandi 
 afflictos a daemone). The author maintains that 
 nearly all so-called nervous diseases, hysteria, 
 epilepsy, insanity, and milder forms of mental 
 alienation, are either the direct result of dia-
 
 72 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 bolical agencies or attended and greatly aggra- 
 vated by them. A sound mind in a sound body 
 may make a man devil-proof, but Satan is quick 
 to take advantage of his infirmities in order to 
 get possession of his person. The adversary is 
 constantly lying in wait watching for and trying 
 to produce physical derangements as breaches in 
 the wall, through which he may rush in and 
 capture the citadel of the soul. In all cases of 
 this sort the priest is to be called in with the 
 physician, and the medicines are to be blessed 
 and sprinkled with holy water before being 
 administered. Exorcisms and conjurations are 
 not only to be spoken over the patient, but also 
 to be written on slips of consecrated paper and 
 applied, like a plaster, to the parts especially 
 affected. The physician should keep himself 
 supplied with these written exorcisms, to be used 
 when it is impossible for a priest to be present. 
 As with patent medicines, the public is warned 
 against counterfeits, and no exorcism is genuine 
 unless it is stamped with the seal and bears the 
 signature of the bishop of the diocese. Accord- 
 ing to Father Lohbauer, the demon is the efficient 
 cause of the malady, and there can be no cure 
 until the evil one is cast out. This is the office 
 of the priest ; the physician then heals the 
 physical disorder, repairing the damage done to 
 the body, and, as it were, stopping the gaps with 
 his drugs so as to prevent the demon from 
 getting in again. Thus science and religion are
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 73 
 
 reconciled and work together harmoniously for 
 the healing of mankind. 
 
 The Catholic Church has a general form of 
 Benedictio a daemone vexatorum, for the relief 
 of those vexed by demons; and Pope Leo XIII., 
 who was justly esteemed as a man of more than 
 ordinary intelligence and more thoroughly im- 
 bued with the modern spirit than any of his pre- 
 decessors, composed and issued, November 19, 
 1890, a formula of Exorcismus in Satanam et 
 Angelas Apostatas worthy of a place in any medi- 
 aeval collection of conjurations. His Holiness 
 never failed to repeat this exorcism in his daily 
 prayers, and commended it to the bishops and 
 other clergy as a potent means of warding off the 
 assaults of Satan and of casting out devils. In 
 1849 the Bishop of Passau published a Manuale 
 Benedictionum, and as late as 1893 Dr. Theobald 
 Bischofberger described and defended the prac- 
 tice of the papal see, in this respect, in a 
 brochure printed in Stuttgart and entitled Die 
 Verivaltung des Exorcistats nach Massgabe der 
 romischen Benediktionale. 
 
 That these formulas are still deemed highly 
 efficacious is evident from the many recent cases 
 in which they have been employed. Thus in 
 1842 a devil named Ro-ro-ro-ro took possession 
 of " a maiden of angelic beauty " in Luxemburg 
 and was cast out by Bishop Laurentius. This 
 demon claimed to be one of the archangels ex- 
 pelled from heaven, and appears to have rivalled 
 Parson Stocker and Rector Ahlwardt in Anti-
 
 74 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Semitic animosity; when the name of Jesus was 
 mentioned, he cried out derisively : " O, that 
 Jew! Didn't he have to drink gall?" When 
 commanded to depart, he begged that he might 
 go into some Jew. The bishop, however, refused 
 to give him leave and bade him "go to hell," 
 which he forthwith did, " moaning as he went, 
 in melancholy tones, that seemed to issue from 
 the bowels of the earth, ' Burning, burning, ever- 
 lastingly burning in hell!' The voice was so 
 sad," adds the bishop, "that we should have 
 wept for sheer compassion, had we not known 
 that it was the devil." 
 
 Again, a lay brother connected with an educa- 
 tional institute in Rome became diabolically pos- 
 sessed on January 3, 1887, and was exorcised by 
 Father Jordan. In this instance the leading 
 spirit was Lucifer himself, attended by a host of 
 satellites, of whom Lignifex, Latibor, Monitor, 
 Ritu, Sefilie, Shulium, Haijunikel, Exaltor, and 
 Reromfex were the most important. It took 
 about an hour and a half to cast out these demons 
 the first time, but they renewed their assaults on 
 February loth, nth, and I7th, and were not 
 completely discomfited and driven back into the 
 infernal regions until February 23rd, and then 
 only by using the water of Lourdes, which, as 
 Father Jordan states, acted upon them like 
 poison, causing them to w r rithe to and fro. 
 Lucifer was especially rude and saucy in his 
 remarks. Thus, for example, when Father 
 Jordan said, " Every knee in heaven and on the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 75 
 
 earth shall bow to the name of Jesus," the fallen 
 "Son of the Morning" retorted, "Not Luci, 
 not Luci never!" 
 
 It would be easy to multiply authentic reports 
 of things of this sort that have happened within 
 the memory of the present generation, such as 
 the exorcism of a woman of twenty-seven at Laas 
 in the Tyrol in the spring of 1892, and the expul- 
 sion of an evil spirit from a boy ten years of age 
 at Wemding in Bavaria by a capuchin, Father 
 Aurelian, July I3th and i4th, 1891, with the 
 sanction of the bishops of Augsburg and Eich- 
 statt. In the latter case we have a circumstantial 
 account of the affair by the exorcist himself, who, 
 in conclusion, uses the following strong lan- 
 guage : " Whosoever denies demoniacal posses- 
 sion in our days confesses thereby that he has 
 gone astray from the teaching of the Catholic 
 Church ; but he will believe in it when he himself 
 is in the possession of the devil in hell. As for 
 myself I have the authority of two bishops." In 
 a pamphlet on this subject printed at Munich in 
 1892, and entitled Die Teufelsaustreibung in 
 Wemding, the author, Richard Treufels, takes 
 the same view, declaring that diabolical posses- 
 sion "is an incontestable fact, confirmed by the 
 traditions of all nations of ancient and modern 
 times, by the unequivocal testimony of the Old 
 and New Testaments, and by the teaching and 
 practice of the Catholic Church." Christ, he 
 says, gave his disciples power and authority
 
 j6 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 over all devils to cast them out, and the same 
 power is divinely conferred upon every priest by 
 his consecration, although it is never to be 
 exercised without the permission of his bishop. 
 
 Doubtless modern science by investigating the 
 laws and forces of nature is gradually diminish- 
 ing the realm of superstition ; but there are vast 
 low-lying plains of humanity that have not yet 
 felt its enlightening and elevating influence. It 
 has been estimated that nine-tenths of the rural 
 population of Europe and ninety-nine hundredths 
 of the peasantry, living in the vicinity of a 
 cloister and darkened by its shadow, believe 
 in the reality of diabolical possession and 
 attribute most maladies of men and murrain in 
 cattle to the direct agency of Satan, putting their 
 faith in the " metaphysical aid " of the conjurer 
 rather than in medical advice and veterinary 
 skill. 
 
 Unfortunately this belief is not confined to 
 Catholics and boors, but is held by Protestants, 
 who are considered persons of education and 
 superior culture. Dr. Lyman Abbott asserted 
 in a sermon preached in Plymouth Church, that 
 " what we call the impulses of our lower nature 
 are the whispered suggestions of fiend-like 
 natures, watching for our fall and exultant if 
 they can accomplish it." But while affirming 
 that " evil spirits exercise an influence over man- 
 kind," and that cranks like Guiteau, the assassin 
 of President Garfield, are diabolically possessed,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 77 
 
 the reverend divine would hardly risk his reputa- 
 tion for sanity by attempting to exorcise the 
 supposed demon. The Catholic priest holds the 
 same view, but has the courage of his convictions 
 and goes solemnly to work with bell, book and 
 candle to effect the expulsion of the indwelling 
 fiend. 
 
 The fact that such methods of healing are 
 sometimes successful is adduced as conclusive 
 proof of their miraculous character; but this 
 inference is wholly incorrect. Professor Dr. 
 Hoppe, in an essay on Der Teufels- und Geister- 
 glaube und die psychologische Erklarung des 
 Besessenseins (Allgemeine Zeitschrift fiir Psy- 
 chiatric, Bd. LV. p. 290), gives a psychological 
 explanation of these puzzling phenomena. " The 
 priest," he says, " exerts a salutary influence 
 upon the brain through the respect and dignity 
 which he inspires, just as Christ in his day 
 wrought upon those who were sick and possessed 
 with devils." Indeed, it is expressly stated by 
 the evangelist that Jesus did not attempt to do 
 wonderful works among people who did not 
 believe. According to this theory the exorcism 
 effects a cure by its powerful action on the 
 imagination, just as there are frequent ailments, 
 for which a wise physician administers bread 
 pills and a weak solution of powdered sugar as 
 the safest and best medicaments. Professor 
 Hoppe, therefore, approves of " priestly con- 
 jurations for the expulsion of devils as a psychi-
 
 78 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 cal means of healing," and thinks that the more 
 ceremoniously the rite can be performed in the 
 presence of grave and venerable witnesses, the 
 more effective it will be. This opinion is 
 endorsed by a Catholic priest, Friedrich Jaskow- 
 ski, in a pamphlet entitled Der Trierer Rock und 
 seine Patienten vom Jahre 1891 (Saarbriicken : 
 Carl Schmidtke, 1894). The author belongs to 
 the diocese of Trier and is therefore under the 
 jurisdiction of the bishop, Dr. Felix Korum, 
 whose statements concerning the miracles 
 wrought and the evidences of divine mercy mani- 
 fested during the exhibition of the " holy coat " 
 in 1891 he courageously reviews and conclusively 
 refutes. The bishop had printed what he called 
 " documentary proofs," consisting of certificates 
 issued by obscure curates and country doctors, 
 that certain persons suffering chiefly from diseases 
 of the nervous system had been healed, and sought 
 to discover in these cures the w r orking of divine 
 agencies. Jaskowski shows that in several in- 
 stances the persons said to have found relief 
 died shortly afterwards, and maintains that where 
 cures actually occurred they " were not due to a 
 miracle or any direct interference of God with the 
 established order of things, but happened in a 
 purely natural manner." He quotes the late 
 Professor Charcot, Dr. Forel, and other neuro- 
 pathologists to establish the fact that hetero-sug- 
 gestion emanating from a physician or priest, or 
 auto-suggestion originating in the person's own
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 79 
 
 mind, may often be the most effective remedy 
 for neurotic disorders of every kind. In auto- 
 suggestion the patient is possessed with the fixed 
 idea that the doing of a certain thing, which may 
 be in itself absolutely indifferent, will afford 
 relief. As an example of this faith-cure Jas- 
 kowski refers to the woman who was diseased 
 with an issue of blood, and approaching Jesus 
 said within herself: "HI may but touch his 
 garment, I shall be whole." This is precisely 
 the position taken by Jesus himself, who turned 
 to the woman and said : " Daughter, be of good 
 comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole." 
 Jaskowski also quotes the declaration of the 
 evangelist referred to above, that in a certain 
 place the people's lack of faith prevented Jesus 
 from doing many wondrous works, and does not 
 deny that on this principle, which is now recog- 
 nized by the most eminent physicians, some few 
 of the hundreds of pilgrims may have been 
 restored to health by touching the holy coat of 
 Trier; and there is no doubt that the popular 
 belief in Bishop Korum's assertion that it is the 
 same garment which Jesus wore and the woman 
 touched, would greatly increase its healing 
 efficacy through the force of auto-suggestion 
 (see my article on " Recent Recrudescence of 
 Superstition " in Appleton's Popular Science 
 Monthly for Oct. 1895, pp. 762-66). 
 
 The Bishop of Bamberg in Bavaria has been 
 stigmatized as a hypocrite because he sends the
 
 80 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 infirm of his flock on a pilgrimage to Lourdes or 
 Laas or some other holy shrine, while he prefers 
 for himself the profane waters of Karlsbad or 
 Kissingen. But in so doing he is not guilty of 
 any inconsistency, since a journey to sacred 
 places and contact with sacred relics would not 
 act upon him with the same force as upon the 
 ignorant and superstitious masses of his diocese. 
 His conduct only evinces his disbelief in the 
 supernatural character of the remedies he 
 prescribes. The distinguished French physician, 
 Professor Charcot, as already mentioned, recog- 
 nized the curative power of faith under certain 
 circumstances, and occasionally found it emi- 
 nently successful in hysterical and other purely 
 nervous affections. In some cases he did not 
 hesitate to prescribe a pilgrimage to the shrine 
 of any saint for whom the patient may have had 
 a peculiar reverence; but in no instance in his 
 experience did faith or exorcism or hagiolatry 
 heal an organic disease, set a dislocated joint or 
 restore an amputated limb. What Falstaff says 
 of honour is equally true of faith, it " hath no 
 skill in surgery." 
 
 But to return from this digression, Pere 
 Bougeant's theory of the diabolical possession of 
 pagans and unbaptized persons would provide 
 for comparatively few devils, and the gradual 
 diffusion of Christianity would constantly 
 diminish the supply of human beings available 
 as their proper habitations. The ultimate con-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 8 r 
 
 version of the whole world and the custom of 
 baptizing infants as soon as they are born would, 
 therefore, produce serious domiciliary destitu- 
 tion and distress among the evil spirits and set 
 immense numbers of them hopelessly adrift as 
 vagabonds, and thus create an extremely undesir- 
 able diabolical proletariat. This difficulty is 
 avoided by assuming that the vast majority of 
 devils are incarnate in the billions of beasts of all 
 kinds, which dwell upon the earth or fly in the 
 air or fill the waters of the rivers and the seas. 
 This hypothesis, he adds, "enables me to 
 ascribe to the lower animals thought, knowledge, 
 feeling, and a spiritual principle or soul without 
 running counter to the truths of religion. In- 
 deed, so far from being astonished at their mani- 
 festations 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 exhibi- 
 tions of intelligence, their thoughts and all their 
 mental operations must be less perfect; and, if 
 these proud spirits are conscious of their condi- 
 tion, how humiliating it must be for them to see 
 themselves thus embruted ! Whether they are 
 conscious of it or not, this deep degradation is 
 6
 
 82 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 the first act of God's vengeance executed on his 
 foes. It is a foretaste of hell." 
 
 Only by such an assumption, as our author 
 proceeds to show, is it possible to justify the 
 ways of man to the lower animals and to recon- 
 cile his cruel treatment of them with the goodness 
 of an all-wise and all-powerful maker and ruler 
 of the universe. For this reason, he goes on to 
 explain, the Christian Church has never deemed 
 it a duty to take the lower animals under its pro- 
 tection or to inculcate ordinary natural kindness 
 towards them. Hence in countries, like Italy and 
 Spain, where the influence of Catholicism has 
 been supreme for centuries, not only are wild 
 birds and beasts of chase relentlessly slaughtered 
 and exterminated, but even useful domestic 
 animals, asses, sumpter-mules and pack-horses, 
 are subjected to a supererogation of suffering at 
 the hands of ruthless man. As the pious Parsi 
 conscientiously comes up to the help of Ahuram- 
 azda against the malevolent Angro-mainyush by 
 killing as many as possible of the creatures 
 which the latter has made, so the good Catholic 
 becomes an efficient co-worker with God by mal- 
 treating 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.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 83 
 
 There are doubtless many persons of tender 
 susceptibilities, who cannot bear to think that the 
 animals, whose daily companionship we enjoy, 
 the parrot we feed with sugar, the pretty pug we 
 caress and the noble horse, which ministers to 
 our comfort and convenience, are nothing but 
 devils predestined to everlasting torture. But 
 these purely sentimental considerations are of no 
 weight in the scale of reason. " What matters 
 it," replies the Jesuit Father, " whether it is a 
 devil or another kind of creature that is in our 
 service or contributes to our amusement? For 
 my part, this idea pleases rather than repels me ; 
 and I recognize with gratitude the beneficence of 
 the Creator in having provided me with so many 
 little devils for my use and entertainment. If it 
 be said that these poor creatures, which we have 
 learned to love and so fondly cherish, are fore- 
 ordained to eternal torments, I can only adore 
 the decrees of God, but do not hold myself 
 responsible for the terrible sentence ; I leave the 
 execution of the dread decision to the sovereign 
 judge and continue to live with my little devils, 
 as I live pleasantly with a multitude of persons, 
 of whom, according to the teachings of our holy 
 religion, the great majority will be damned." 
 The crafty disciple of Loyola, elusive of dis- 
 agreeable deductions, is content to accept the 
 poodle in its phenomenal form and to make the 
 most of it, without troubling himself about " des 
 Pudels Kern."
 
 84 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 This doctrine, he thinks, is amply illustrated 
 and confirmed by an appeal to the consentient 
 opinion of mankind or the argument from uni- 
 versal belief, which has been so often and so 
 effectively urged in proof of the existence of 
 God. If the maxim universitas non delinquit 
 has the same validity in the province of philo- 
 sophy as in that of law, then we are justified in 
 assuming that the whole human race cannot go 
 wrong even in purely metaphysical speculation 
 and that unanimity in error is a psychological 
 impossibility. The criterion of truth, quod 
 semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, by which 
 the Roman hierarchy is willing to have its claims 
 to ecclesiastical catholicity and doctrinal ortho- 
 doxy tested, is confined to Christendom in its 
 application and does not consider the views of 
 persons outside of the body of believers. In the 
 question under discussion the argument is not 
 subject to such limitations, but gathers testimony 
 from all races and religions, showing that there 
 is not a civilized nation or savage tribe on the 
 face of the earth, which does not regard or has 
 not regarded the lower animals as embodiments 
 of evil spirits and sought to propitiate them. 
 That " the devil is an ass " is a truth so palpable 
 that it has passed into a proverb. Baal-zebub 
 means fly-god; and the Christian Satan betrays 
 his presence by the cloven foot of the goat or the 
 solid hoof of the horse. In folk-lore, which is 
 the debris of exploded mythologies adrift on the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 85 
 
 stream of popular tradition, cats, dogs, otters, 
 apes, ravens, blackcocks', capercailzies, rabbits, 
 hedgehogs, wolves, were-wolves, foxes, pole- 
 cats, swine, serpents, toads, and countless 
 varieties of insects, reptiles and vermin figure as 
 incarnations and instruments of the devil ; and 
 Mephistopheles reveals himself to Faust as 
 
 " Der Herr der Ratten und der Mause, 
 Der Fliegen, Frosche, Wanzen, Lause." 
 
 " The Lord of rats and of the mice, 
 Of flies and frogs, bed-bugs and lice. 1 ' 
 
 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. The objection that a flea or a fly, 
 a mite or a mosquito is too small a creature to 
 furnish fit lodgment for a demon, Father Bou- 
 geant dismisses with an indulgent smile and 
 disparaging shrug as implying a gross miscon- 
 ception of the nature and properties of spirit, 
 which is without extension or dimension and 
 therefore capable of animating the most diminu- 
 tive particle of organized matter. Large and 
 little are purely relative terms. God, he says, 
 could have made man as small as the tiniest 
 puceron without any decrease of his spiritual 
 powers. " It is, therefore, no more difficult to 
 believe that a devil may be incorporated in the 
 delicate body of a gnat than in the huge bulk of
 
 86 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 an elephant." The size of the physical habita- 
 tion, in which spirits take up their temporary 
 abode, is a thing of no consequence. In fact, 
 devils in the forms of gnats and tiny insects were 
 thought to be especially dangerous, since one 
 might swallow them unawares and thus become 
 diabolically possessed. The demon, liberated by 
 the death and dissolution of the insect, was sup- 
 posed to make a tenement of the unfortunate 
 person's stomach, producing gripes and playing 
 ventriloquous tricks. Thus it is recorded in the 
 Dies Caniculuares of Majolus (Meyer : Der 
 Aberglaube des Mittelalters, p. 296-7) that a 
 young maiden in the Erzgebirge near Joachims- 
 thai, in 1559, swallowed a fly, while drinking 
 beer. The evil spirit, incarnate in the fly, took 
 possession of the maiden and began to speak out 
 of her, thus attracting crowds of people, who put 
 questions to the devil and tried to drive him out 
 by prayers, in which the unhappy girl sometimes 
 joined, greatly to her discomfort, since the devil 
 waxed exceeding wroth and unruly and caused 
 her much suffering, whenever she uttered the 
 name of Christ. Finally the parish priest had 
 her brought into the church, where he succeeded 
 with considerable difficulty in exorcising her. 
 The stubborn demon resisted for two years all 
 efforts to cast him out; he even tried to com- 
 promise with the girl, promising to be content 
 with a finger nail or a single hair of her head, 
 but she declined all overtures, and he was at last
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 87 
 
 expelled by means of a potent conjuration, which 
 lasted from midnight till midday. 
 
 As the human soul is released by death, so the 
 extinction of life in any animal sets its devil 
 free, who, instead of entering upon a spiritual 
 state of existence, goes into the egg or embryo of 
 another animal and resumes his penal bondage 
 to the flesh. " Thus a devil, after having been a 
 cat or a goat, may pass, not by choice, but by 
 constraint, into the embryo of a bird, a fish or a 
 butterfly. Happy are those who make a lucky 
 hit and become household pets, instead of beasts 
 of burden or of slaughter. The lottery of destiny 
 bars them the right of voluntary choosing." 
 The doctrine of transmigration, continues our 
 author, " which Pythagoras taught of yore and 
 some Indian sages hold to-day, is untenable in 
 its application to men and contrary to religion, 
 but it fits admirably into the system already set 
 forth concerning the nature of beasts, and shocks 
 neither our faith nor our reason." Further- 
 more, it explains why "all species of animals 
 produce many more eggs or embryos than are 
 necessary to propagate their kind and to provide 
 for a normal increase." Of the millions of 
 germs, of which " great creating nature " is so 
 prolific, comparatively few ever develop into 
 living creatures; only those which are vivified 
 by a devil are evolved into complete organisms ; 
 the others perish. This seeming superfluity and 
 waste can be most easily reconciled with the care-
 
 88 The Criminal Prosecution ana 
 
 ful economy and wise frugality of nature by 
 viewing it as a manifestation of the bountiful and 
 beneficent providence of God in preventing 
 " any lack of occupation or abode on the part of 
 the devils," which are being constantly dis- 
 embodied and re-embodied. " This accounts for 
 the prodigious clouds of locusts and countless 
 hosts of caterpillars, which suddenly desolate our 
 fields and gardens. The cause of these astonish- 
 ing multiplications has been sought in cold, 
 heat, rain and wind, but the real reason is that, 
 at the time of their appearance, extraordinary 
 quantities of animals have died or their embryos 
 been destroyed, so that the devils that animated 
 them were compelled to avail themselves at once 
 of whatever species they found most ready to 
 receive them, which would naturally be the 
 superabundant eggs of insects." The more pro- 
 foundly this subject is investigated, he con- 
 cludes, and the more light our observations and 
 researches throw upon it from all sides, the more 
 probable does the hypothesis here suggested in 
 explanation of the puzzling phenomena of 
 animal life and intelligence appear. 
 
 Father Bougeant calls his lucubration " a new 
 system of philosophy "; but this is not strictly 
 true. He has only given a fuller and more 
 facetious exposition of a doctrine taught by 
 many of the greatest lights of the Catholic 
 Church, among others by Thomas Aquinas, 
 whose authority as a thinker Pope Leo XIII.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 89 
 
 distinctly recognized and earnestly sought to 
 restore to its former prestige. Bougeant's in- 
 genious dissertation has a vein of irony or at 
 least a strain of jocundity in it, approaching at 
 times so perilously near the fatal brink of persi- 
 flage, that one cannot help surmising an inten- 
 tion to render the whole thing ridiculous in a 
 witty and underhand way eminently compatible 
 with Jesuitical habits of mind; but whether seri- 
 ous or satirical, his treatise is an excellent 
 example and illustration of the kind of dialectic 
 hair-splitting and syllogistic rubbish, which 
 passed for reasoning in the early and middle 
 ages of the Christian era, and which the greatest 
 scholars and acutest intellects of those days 
 fondly indulged in and seem to have been fully 
 satisfied with. Here, too, we come upon the 
 metaphysical and theological groundwork, upon 
 which was reared by a strictly logical process a 
 vast superstructure of ecclesiastical excommuni- 
 cation and criminal prosecution against bugs and 
 beasts. He protests with never-tiring and need- 
 less iteration his absolute devotion to the pre- 
 cepts of religion ; indeed, like the lady in the 
 play, he " protests too much, methinks." In all 
 humbleness and submission he bows to the 
 authority of the Church, and would not touch the 
 ark of the covenant even with the tip of his 
 finger, but his easy acquiescence has an air of 
 perfunctoriness, and in his assenting lips there 
 lurks a secret, semi-sarcastic leer, which casts
 
 90 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 suspicion on his words and looks like poking fun 
 at the principles he professes and turning them 
 into raillery. 
 
 Indeed, such covert derision would have been 
 a suitable way of ridiculing the gross popular 
 superstition of his time, which saw a diabolical 
 incarnation in every unfamiliar form of animal 
 life. During the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century a Swiss naturalist named Thurneysser, 
 who held the position of physician in ordinary 
 to the Elector Johann Georg von Branden- 
 burg, kept some scorpions bottled in olive oil, 
 which were feared by the common people as 
 terrible devils endowed with magic power (filrch- 
 terliche Zauberteufel). Thurneysser presented 
 also to Basel, his native city, a large elk, which 
 had been given to him by Prince Radziwil ; but 
 the good Baselers looked upon the strange 
 animal as a most dangerous demon, and a pious 
 old woman finally rid the town of the dreaded 
 beast by feeding it with an apple stuck full of 
 broken needles. 
 
 A distinguished Spanish theologian of the six- 
 teenth century, Martin Azpilcueta, commonly 
 known as Dr. Navarre, refers, in his work on 
 excommunication, to a case in which anathemas 
 were fulminated against certain large sea-crea- 
 tures called terones, which infested the waters of 
 Sorrento and destroyed the nets of the fisher- 
 men. He speaks of them as " fish or caco- 
 demons " (pisces sen cacodemones], and main-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 91 
 
 tains that they are subject to anathematization, 
 not as fish, but only as devils. In his Five 
 Counsels and other tractates on this subject 
 (Opera, Lyons, 1589 ; reprinted at Venice, 1601-2, 
 and at Cologne, 1616) he often takes issue with 
 Chassene"e on minor points, but the French jurist 
 and the Spanish divine agree on the main 
 question. 
 
 In this connection it may be a matter of 
 interest to add, that a German neuropathologist 
 of our own day, Herr von Bodelschwingh, 
 ascribes epilepsy to what he calls " demonic 
 infection " due to the presence of the bacillus 
 infernalis in the blood of those who are subject 
 to this disease. The microbe, to which the 
 jocose scientist has been pleased to give this 
 name, differs from all other bacilli hitherto dis- 
 covered in having two horns and a tail, although 
 the most powerful lenses have not yet revealed 
 any traces of a cloven foot. An additional indica- 
 tion of its infernal qualities is the fact that it 
 liquefies the gelatine, with which it comes in con- 
 tact, and turns it black, emitting at the same 
 time a pestilential stench. Doubtless this dis- 
 covery will be hailed by theologians as a striking 
 confirmation of divine revelation by modern 
 science, proving that our forefathers were right 
 in attributing the falling-sickness to diabolical 
 agencies. We know now that it was a legion of 
 bacilli infernales which went out of the tomb- 
 haunting man into the Gadarene swine and drove
 
 92 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 them tumultuously over a precipice into the sea. 
 In fact, who can tell what microbes really are ! 
 Pere Bougeant would certainly have regarded 
 them as nothing less than microscopic devils. 
 
 The Savoyan jurist, Gaspard Bailly, in the 
 second part of the disquisition entitled Trait e 
 des Monitoires, already mentioned, treats " Of 
 the Excellence of Monitories " and discusses the 
 main points touching the criminal prosecution 
 and punishment of insects. He begins by saying 
 that "one should not contemn monitories (a 
 general term for anathemas, bans and excom- 
 munications), seeing that they are matters of 
 great importance, inasmuch as they bear with 
 them the deadliest sword, wielded by our holy 
 mother, the Church, to wit, the power of excom- 
 munication, which cutteth the dry wood and the 
 green, sparing neither the quick nor the dead, 
 and smiting not only rational beings, but turn- 
 ing its edge also against irrational creatures; 
 since it hath been shown at sundry times and in 
 divers places, that worms and insects, which 
 were devouring the fruits of the earth, have been 
 excommunicated and, in obedience to the com- 
 mands of the Church, have withdrawn from the 
 cultivated fields to the places prescribed by the 
 bishop who had been appointed to adjudge and 
 to adjure them." 
 
 M. Bailly then cites numerous instances of this 
 kind, in which a writer on logic would find ample 
 illustrations of the fallacy known as post hoc,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 93 
 
 ergo propter hoc. Thus in the latter half of the 
 fifteenth century, during the reign of Charles the 
 Bold, Duke of Burgundy, a plague of locusts 
 threatened the province of Mantua in Northern 
 Italy with famine, but were dispersed by excom- 
 munication. He quotes some florid lines from 
 the poet Altiat descriptive of these devastating 
 swarms, which " came, after so many other woes, 
 under the leadership of Eurus (i. e. brought by 
 the east wind), more destructive than the hordes 
 of Attila or the camps of Corsicans, devouring 
 the hay, the millet and the corn, and leaving only 
 vain wisheSj where the hopes of August stood." 
 Again in 1541, a cloud of locusts fell upon 
 Lombardy, and by destroying the crops, caused 
 many persons to perish with hunger. These 
 insects " were as long as a man's finger, with 
 large heads and bellies filled with vileness; and 
 when dead they infected the air and gave forth 
 a stench, which even carrion kites and carnivor- 
 ous beasts could not endure." Another instance 
 is given, in which swarms of four-winged insects 
 came from Tartary, identified in the popular 
 mind with Tartarus, obscuring the sun in their 
 flight and covering the plains of Poland a cubit 
 deep. In the year 1338, on St. Bartholomew's 
 Day, these creatures began to devastate the 
 region round Botzen in the Tyrol, consuming 
 the crops and laying eggs and leaving a numer- 
 ous progeny, which seemed destined to continue 
 the work of destruction indefinitely. A prosecu-
 
 94 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 tion was therefore instituted against them before 
 the ecclesiastical court at Kaltern, a large 
 market-town about ten miles south of Botzen, 
 then as now famous for its wines, and the parish 
 priest instructed to proceed against them with the 
 sentence of excommunication in accordance with 
 the verdict of the tribunal. This he did by the 
 solemn ceremony of " inch of candle," and 
 anathematized them " in the name of the Blessed 
 Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost." Owing to 
 the sins of the people and their remissness in the 
 matter of tithes the devouring insects resisted for 
 a time the power of the Church, but finally dis- 
 appeared. Under the reign of Lotharius II., early 
 in the twelfth century, enormous quantities of 
 locusts, " having six wings with two teeth harder 
 than flint " and " darkening the sky and whiten- 
 ing the air like a snowstorm," laid waste the 
 most fertile provinces of France. Many of them 
 perished in the rivers and the sea, and being 
 washed ashore sent forth a putrescent smell and 
 produced a fearful pestilence. Precisely the 
 same phenomenon, with like disastrous results, is 
 described by St. Augustine in the last book of 
 De Civitate Dei as having occurred in Africa and 
 caused the death of 800,000 persons. 
 
 In the majority of cases adduced there is no 
 evidence that the Church intervened at all with 
 its fulminations, and, even when the anathema 
 was pronounced, the insects appear to have 
 departed of their own free-will after having eaten
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 95 
 
 up every green thing and reduced the inhabitants 
 to the verge of starvation; and yet M. Bailly, 
 supposed to be a man of judicial mind, dis- 
 ciplined by study, accustomed to reason and to 
 know what sound reasoning is, goes on giving 
 accounts of such scourges, as though they proved 
 in some mysterious way the effectiveness of 
 ecclesiastical excommunications and formed a 
 cumulative argument in support of such claims. 
 The most important portion of M. Bailly's 
 work is that in which he shows how actions 
 of this kind should be brought and conducted, 
 with specimens of plaints, pleas, replications, 
 rejoinders, and decisions. First in order comes 
 the petition of the inhabitants seeking redress 
 (requeste des habitans), which is followed in 
 regular succession by the declaration or plea of 
 the inhabitants (plaidoyer des habitans), the 
 defensive allegation or plea for the insects 
 (plaidoyer pour les insectes), the replication of 
 the inhabitants (replique des habitans), the re- 
 joinder of the defendant (replique du defendeur), 
 the conclusions of the bishop's proctor (conclu- 
 sions du procureur episcopal), and the sentence 
 of the ecclesiastical judge (sentence du juge 
 d'eglise), which is solemnly pronounced in 
 Latin. The pleadings on both sides are de- 
 livered in French and richly interlarded with 
 classical allusions and Latin quotations, being 
 even more heavily weighted with the spoils of 
 erudition than the set speech of a member of 
 the British Parliament.
 
 96 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 The following abridgment of the plea, in 
 which the prosecuting attorney sets forth the 
 cause of complaint, is a fair specimen of the 
 forensic eloquence displayed on such occasions : 
 
 " Gentlemen, these poor people on their 
 knees and with tearful eyes, appeal to your sense 
 of justice, as the inhabitants of the islands 
 Majorica and Minorica formerly sent an embassy 
 to Augustus Caesar, praying him for a cohort of 
 soldiers to exterminate the rabbits, which were 
 burrowing in their fields and consuming their 
 crops. In the power of excommunication you 
 have a weapon more effective than any wielded 
 by that emperor to save these poor suppliants 
 from impending famine produced by the 
 ravages of little beasts, which spare neither the 
 corn nor the vines, ravages like those of the boar 
 that laid waste the environs of Calydon, as 
 related by Homer in the first book of the Iliad, 
 or those of the foxes sent by Themis to Thebes, 
 which destroyed the fruits of the earth and the 
 cattle and assailed even the husbandmen them- 
 selves. You know how great are the evils 
 which famine brings with it, and you have too 
 much kindness and compassion to permit my 
 clients to be involved in such distress, thus con- 
 straining them to perpetrate cruel and unlawful 
 deeds; nee enim rationem patitur, nee ulla 
 aequitate mitigatur, nee prece ulla flectitur 
 esuriens populus : for a starving people is not 
 amenable to reason, nor tempered by equity, nor 
 moved by any prayer. Witness the mothers,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 97 
 
 of whom it is recorded in the Fourth Book of 
 the Kings, that they ate their, own children, the 
 one saying to the other : ' Give thy son that we 
 may eat him to-day, and we will eat my son to- 
 morrow.' ' The advocate then discourses at 
 length of the horrors of hunger and its dis- 
 astrous effects upon the individual and the com- 
 munity, lugging in what Milton calls a " horse- 
 load of citations" from Arianus Marcellinus, 
 Ovid and other Latin prosaists and poets, intro- 
 duces an utterly irrelevant allusion to Joshua 
 and the crafty Gibeonites, and concludes as 
 follows : " The full reports received as the result 
 of an examination of the fields, made at your 
 command, suffice for your information concern- 
 ing the damage done by these animals. It 
 remains, therefore, after complying with the 
 usual forms, only to adjudicate upon the case in 
 accordance with the facts stated in the Petition 
 of the Plaintiffs, which is right and reasonable, 
 and, to this effect, to enjoin these animals from 
 continuing their devastations, ordering them to 
 quit the aforesaid fields and to withdraw to the 
 place assigned them, pronouncing the necessary 
 anathemas and execrations prescribed by our 
 Holy Mother, the Church, for which your peti- 
 tioners do ever pray." 
 
 It is doubtful whether any speaking for Bun- 
 combe in the halls of Congress or any spouting 
 of an ignorant bumpkin in the moot-court of an 
 American law-school ever produced such a 
 7
 
 98 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 rhetorical hotchpotch of " matter and impertin- 
 ency mixed " as the earnest plea, of which the 
 above is a brief abstract. 
 
 Rather more to the point, but equally over- 
 burdened with legal lore and literary pedantry, 
 is the rejoinder of the counsel for the insects : 
 
 " Gentlemen, inasmuch as you have chosen 
 me to defend these little beasts (bestioles), I 
 shall, an it please you, endeavour to right them 
 and to show that the manner of proceeding 
 against them is invalid and void. I confess that 
 I am greatly astonished at the treatment they 
 have been subjected to and at the charges 
 brought against them, as though they had com- 
 mitted some crime. Thus information has been 
 procured touching the damage said to have been 
 done by them ; they have been summoned to 
 appear before this court to answer for their 
 conduct, and, since they are notoriously dumb, 
 the judge, wishing that they should not suffer 
 wrong on account of this defect, has appointed 
 an advocate to speak in their behalf and to set 
 forth in conformity with right and justice the 
 reasons, which they themselves are unable to 
 allege. 
 
 . " Since you have permitted me to appear in 
 defence of these poor animals, I will state, in the 
 first place, that the summons served on them is 
 null and void, having been issued against 
 beasts, which cannot and ought not to be cited 
 before this judgment seat, inasmuch as such a
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 99 
 
 procedure implies that the parties summoned are 
 endowed with reason and volition and are there- 
 fore capable of committing crime. That this is 
 not the case with these creatures is clear from 
 the paragraph Si quadrupes, etc., in the first 
 book of the Pandects, where we find these 
 words : Nee enim potest animal injuriam fecisse, 
 quod sensu caret. 
 
 " The second ground, on which I base the 
 defence of my clients, is that no one can be 
 judicially summoned without cause, and whoever 
 has had such a summons served renders himself 
 liable to the penalty prescribed by the statute 
 De poen. tern, litig. As regards these animals 
 there is no causa justa litigandi; they are not 
 bound in any manner, non tenentur ex con- 
 tractu, being incompetent to make contracts 
 or to enter into any compact or covenant what- 
 soever, neque ex quasi contractu, neque ex 
 stipulatione, neque ex pacto, and still less ex 
 delicto seu quasi, can there be any question of a 
 delict or any semblance thereof, since, as has 
 just been shown, the rational faculties essential 
 to the capability of committing criminal actions 
 are wanting. 
 
 " Furthermore, it is illicit to do that which is 
 nugatory and of non-effect (qui ne porte coup) ; 
 in this respect justice is like nature, which, as 
 the philosopher affirms, does nothing mal a 
 propos or in vain : Deus enim et Natura nihil 
 operantur frustra. Now I leave it to you to
 
 ioo The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 decide whether anything could be more futile 
 than to summon these irrational creatures, 
 which can neither speak for themselves, nor 
 appoint proxies to defend their cause; still less 
 are they able to present memorials stating 
 grounds of their justification. If then, as I have 
 shown, the summons, which is the basis of all 
 judicial action, is null and void, the proceedings 
 dependent upon it will not be able to stand : 
 cum enim principalis causa non consistat, neque 
 ea quae consequuntur locum habent." 
 
 The counsel for the defence rests his argument, 
 of which the extract just given may suffice as a 
 sample, upon the irrationality and consequent 
 irresponsibility of his clients. For this reason 
 he maintains that the judge cannot appoint a 
 procurator to represent them, and cites legal 
 authorities to show that the incompetency of the 
 principal implies the incompetency of the proxy, 
 in conformity with the maxim : quod directe 
 fieri prohibetur, per indirectum concedi non 
 debet. In like manner the invalidity of the 
 summons bars any charge of contempt of court 
 and condemnation for contumacy. Further- 
 more, the very nature of excommunication is 
 such that it cannot be pronounced against them, 
 since it is defined as extra ecclesiam positio, vel 
 e qualibet communione, vel quolibet legitimo 
 actu separatio. But these animals cannot be 
 expelled from the Church, because they are not 
 members of it and do not fall under its jurisdic-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 101 
 
 tion, as the apostle Paul says : " Ye judge them 
 that are within and not them also that are with- 
 out." Excommunicatio afficit animam, non 
 corpus, nisi per quandam consequentiam, cujus 
 medicina est. The animal soul, not being 
 immortal, cannot be affected by such sentence, 
 which involves the loss of eternal salvation 
 (quae vergit in dispendium aeternae salutis). 
 
 A still more important consideration is that 
 these insects are only exercising an innate right 
 conferred upon them at their creation, when God 
 expressly gave them "every green herb for 
 meat," a right which cannot be curtailed or 
 abrogated, simply because it may be offensive to 
 man. In support of this view he quotes pas- 
 sages from Cicero's treatise De Officiis, the 
 Epistle of Jude and the works of Thomas 
 Aquinas. Finally, he maintains that his clients 
 are agents of the Almighty sent to punish us 
 for our sins, and to hurl anathemas against them 
 would be to fight against God (s'en prendre a 
 Dieu), who has said : " I will send wild beasts 
 among you, which shall destroy you and your 
 cattle and make you few in number." That all 
 flesh has corrupted its way upon the earth, he 
 thinks is as true now as before the deluge, and 
 cites about a dozen lines from the Metamor- 
 phoses of Ovid in confirmation of this fact. 
 In conclusion he demands the acquittal of 
 the defendants ami their exemption from all 
 further prosecution.
 
 io2 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 The prosecuting attorney in his replication 
 answers these objections in regular order, show- 
 ing, in the first place, that, while the law may 
 not punish an irrational creature for a crime 
 already committed, it may intervene, as in the 
 case of an insane person, to prevent the com- 
 mission of a crime by putting the madman in a 
 strait-jacket or throwing him into prison. He 
 elucidates this principle by a rather far-fetched 
 illustration from the legal enactments concerning 
 betrothal and breach of promise of marriage. 
 " It follows then inferentially that the aforesaid 
 animals can be properly summoned to appear 
 and that the summons is valid, inasmuch as this 
 is done in order to prevent them from causing 
 damage henceforth (d'ores en avant) and only 
 incidentally to punish them for injuries already 
 inflicted." 
 
 " To affirm that such animals cannot be 
 anathematized and excommunicated is to doubt 
 the authority conferred by God upon his dear 
 spouse, the Church, whom he has made the 
 sovereign of the whole world, having, in the 
 words of the Psalmist, put all things under her 
 feet, all sheep and oxen, the beasts of the field, 
 the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea and what- 
 soever passeth through the paths of the seas. 
 Guided by the Holy Spirit she does nothing 
 unwisely; and if there is anything in which she 
 should show forth her power it is in protecting 
 and preserving the most perfect work of her
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 103 
 
 heavenly husband, to wit, man, who was made 
 in the divine image and likeness." The orator 
 then dilates on the grandeur and glory of man 
 and interlards his harangue with quotations 
 from sacred and profane writers, Moses, Paul, 
 Pliny, Ovid, Silius Italicus and Pico di Miran- 
 dola, and declares that nothing could be more 
 absurd than to deprive such a being of the fruits 
 of the earth for the sake of " vile and paltry 
 vermin." In reply to the statement of Thomas 
 Aquinas, quoted by the counsel for the defence, 
 that it is futile to curse animals as such, the 
 plaintiffs' advocate says that they are not viewed 
 merely as animals, but as creatures doing harm 
 to man by eating and wasting the products of 
 the soil designed for human sustenance; in other 
 words he ascribes to them a certain diabolical 
 character. " But why dwell upon this point, 
 since besides the instances recorded in Holy 
 Writ, in which God curses inanimate things and 
 irrational creatures, we have an infinite number 
 of examples of holy men, who have excommuni- 
 cated noxious animals. It will suffice to mention 
 one familiar to us all and constantly before our 
 eyes in the town of Aix, where St. Hugon, 
 Bishop of Grenoble, excommunicated the ser- 
 pents, which infested the warm baths and killed 
 many of the inhabitants by biting them. Now 
 it is well known, that if the serpents in that place 
 or in the immediate vicinity bite any one, the 
 bite is no longer fatal. The venom of the reptile 
 was stayed and annulled by virtue of the excom-
 
 104 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 munication, so that no hurt ensues from the bite, 
 although the bite of the same kind of serpent 
 outside of the region affected by the ban, is 
 followed by death." 
 
 That serpents and other poisonous reptiles 
 could be deprived of their venom by enchantment 
 and thus rendered harmless is in accord with 
 the teachings of the Bible. Thus we read in 
 Ecclesiastes (x. 11): "Surely the serpent will 
 bite without enchantment," i.e. unless it be 
 enchanted and its bite disenvenomed. A curious 
 superstition concerning the adder is referred to 
 in the Psalms (Iviii. 4, 5), where the wicked are 
 said to be " like the deaf adder that stoppeth her 
 ear; which will not hearken to the voice of 
 charmers, charming never so wisely." The Lord 
 is also represented by Jeremiah (viii. 17) as 
 threatening to "send serpents, cockatrices, 
 among you, which will not be charmed, and they 
 shall bite you." It does not seem to have 
 occurred to the prosecutor that the defendants 
 might be locusts, which would not be excom- 
 municated. 
 
 The objection that God has sent these insects 
 as a scourge, and that to anathematize them 
 would be to fight against him, is met by say- 
 ing that to have recourse to the offices of the 
 Church is an act of religion, which does not 
 resist, but humbly recognizes the divine will and 
 makes use of the means appointed for avert- 
 ing the divine wrath and securing the divine 
 favour.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 105 
 
 After the advocates had finished their plead- 
 ings, the case was summed up by the episcopal 
 procurator substantially as follows : 
 
 " The arguments offered by the counsel for 
 the defence against the proceedings institued by 
 the inhabitants as complainants are worthy of 
 careful consideration and deserve to be examined 
 soberly and maturely, because the bolt of excom- 
 munication should not be hurled recklessly and 
 at random (a la volee), being a weapon of such 
 peculiar energy and activity that, if it fails to 
 strike the object against which it is hurled, it 
 returns to smite him, who hurled it." [This 
 notion that an anathema is a dangerous missile 
 to him who hurls it unlawfully or for an 
 unjust purpose, retroacting like an Australian 
 boomerang, survives in the homely proverb : 
 " Curses, like chickens, come home to roost."] 
 The bishop's proctor reviews the speeches of the 
 lawyers, but seems to have his brains somewhat 
 muddled by them. " It is truly a deep sea," he 
 says, " in which it is impossible to touch bottom. 
 We cannot tell why God has sent these animals 
 to devour the fruits of the earth ; this is for us 
 a sealed book (lettres closes)." He suggests it 
 may be " because the people turn a deaf ear to 
 the poor begging at their doors," and goes off 
 into a long eulogy on the beauty of charity, with 
 an anthology of extracts from various writers in 
 praise of alms-giving, among which is one from 
 Eusebius descriptive of hell as a cold region,
 
 106 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 where the wailing and gnashing of teeth are 
 attributed to the torments of eternal frost instead 
 of everlasting fire (liberaberis ab illo frigore, in 
 quo erit fletus el stridor dentium). Again, the 
 plague of insects may be due to irreverence 
 shown in the churches, which, he declares, have 
 been changed from the house of God into houses 
 of assignation. On this point he quotes from 
 Tertullian, Augustine, and Numa Pompilius, 
 and concludes by recommending that sentence of 
 excommunication be pronounced upon the 
 insects, and that the prayers and penances, 
 customary in such cases, be imposed upon the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 After this discourse, which reads more like a 
 homily from the pulpit than a plea at the bar 
 and in the mouth of the bishop's proctor is 
 simply an oratio pro domo, the official gave 
 judgment in favour of the plaintiffs. The 
 sentence, which was pronounced in Latin befit- 
 ting the dignity and solemnity of the occasion, 
 condemned the defendants to vacate the premises 
 within six days on pain of anathema. 
 
 The official begins by stating the case as that 
 of " The People versus Locusts," declaring that 
 the guilt of the accused has been clearly proved 
 "by the testimony of w r orthy witnesses and, 
 as it were, by public rumour," and inasmuch as 
 the people have humbled themselves before God 
 and supplicated the Church to succour them in 
 their distress, it is not fitting to refuse them help
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 107 
 
 and solace. " Walking in the footsteps of the 
 fathers, sitting on the judgment-seat, having 
 the fear of God before our eyes and confiding 
 in his mercy, relying on the counsel of experts, 
 we pronounce and publish our sentence as 
 follows : 
 
 " In the name and by virtue of God, the omni- 
 potent, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of 
 Mary, the most blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and by the authority of the holy apostles 
 Peter and Paul, as well as by that which has 
 made us a functionary in this case, we admonish 
 by these presents the aforesaid locusts and grass- 
 hoppers and other animals by whatsoever name 
 they may be called, under pain of malediction 
 and anathema to depart from the vineyards and 
 fields of this district within six days from the 
 publication of this sentence and to do no further 
 damage there or elsewhere." If, on the expira- 
 tion of this period, the animals have refused to 
 obey this injunction, then they are to be 
 anathematized and accursed, and the inhabit- 
 ants of all classes are to beseech " Almighty 
 God, the dispenser of all good gifts and the 
 dispeller of all evils," to deliver them from so 
 great a calamity, not forgetting to join with 
 devout supplications the performance of all good 
 works and especially "the payment of tithes 
 without fraud according to the approved custom 
 of the parish, and to abstain from blasphemies 
 and such other sins as are of a public and
 
 io8 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 particularly offensive character." (Vide Ap- 
 pendix B.) 
 
 It is doubtful whether one could find in the 
 ponderous tomes of scholastic divinity anything 
 surpassing in comical non sequiturs and sheer 
 nonsense the forensic eloquence of eminent 
 lawyers as transmitted to us in the records of 
 legal proceedings of this kind. Although the 
 counsel for the defendants, as we have seen, 
 ventured to question the propriety and validity 
 of such prosecutions, his scepticism does not 
 seem to have been taken seriously, but was 
 evidently smiled at as the trick of a pettifogger 
 bound to use every artifice to clear his clients. 
 In the writings of mediaeval jurisprudents the 
 right and fitness of inflicting judicial punishment 
 upon animals appear to have been generally 
 admitted. Thus Guy Pape, in his Decisions of 
 the Parliament of Grenoble (Qu. 238), raises the 
 query, whether a brute beast, if it commit a 
 crime, as pigs sometimes do in devouring chil- 
 dren, ought to suffer death, and answers the 
 question unhesitatingly in the affirmative : si 
 animal brutum delinquat, sicut quandoquc 
 faciunt porci qui comedunt pueros, an debeat 
 mori? Dico quod sic." Jean Duret, in his 
 elaborate Treatise on Pains and Penalties 
 (Traicte des Peines et des Amendes, p. 250; cf. 
 Themis Jurisconsulte, VIII. p. 57), takes the 
 same view, declaring that " if beasts not only 
 wound, but kill and eat any person, as experi-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 109 
 
 ence has shown to happen frequently in cases 
 of little children being eaten by pigs, they 
 should pay the forfeit of their lives and be con- 
 demned to be hanged and strangled, in order to 
 efface the memory of the enormity of the deed." 
 The distinguished Belgian jurist, Jodocus 
 Damhouder, discusses this question in his 
 Rerum Criminalium Praxis (cap. CXLII.), and 
 holds that the beast is punishable, if it 
 commits the crime through natural malice, and 
 not through the instigation of others, but 
 that the owner can redeem it by paying for 
 the damage done; nevertheless he is not 
 permitted to keep ferocious or malicious beasts 
 and let them run at large, so as to be a con- 
 stant peril to the community. Occasionally 
 a more enlightened jurist had the common-sense 
 and courage to protest against such perversions 
 and travesties of justice. Thus Pierre Ayrault, 
 lieutenant-criminel au siege presidial d' Angers, 
 published at Angers, in 1591, a small quarto 
 entitled : Des Proces faicts au Cadaver, aux 
 Cendres, d la Memoire, aux Bestes brutes, aux 
 Choses inanimees et aux Contumax, in which 
 he argued that corpses, the ashes and the 
 memory of the dead, brute beasts and inanimate 
 things are not legal persons (legates homines) 
 and therefore do not come within the jurisdiction 
 of a court. Curiously enough a case somewhat 
 analogous to those discussed by Pierre Ayrault 
 was adjudicated upon only a few years ago. A
 
 no The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Frenchman bequeathed his property to his own 
 corpse, in behalf of which his entire estate was 
 to be administered, the income to be expended 
 for the preservation of his mortal remains and 
 the adornment of the magnificent mausoleum in 
 which they were sepulchred. His heirs-at-law 
 contested the will, which was declared null and 
 void by the court on the ground that " a subject 
 deprived of individuality or of civil personality " 
 could not inherit. The same principle would 
 apply to the infliction of penalties upon such 
 subjects. The only kind of legacy that will 
 cause a man's memory to be cherished is the 
 form of bequest which makes the public weal 
 his legatee. The Chinese still hold to the bar- 
 barous custom of bringing corpses to trial and 
 passing sentence upon them. On the 6th of 
 August, 1888, the cadaver of a salt-smuggler, 
 who was wounded in the capture and died in 
 prison, was brought before the criminal court 
 in Shanghai and condemned to be beheaded. 
 This sentence was carried out by the proper 
 officers on the place of execution outside of the 
 west gate of the city. 
 
 Felix Hemmerlein, better known as Malleolus, 
 a distinguished doctor of canon law and proto- 
 martyr of religious reform in Switzerland, states 
 in his Tractatus de Exorcismis, that in the four- 
 teenth century the peasants of the Electorate of 
 Mayence brought a complaint against some 
 Spanish flies, which were accordingly cited to
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 1 1 1 
 
 appear at a specified time and answer for their 
 conduct; but "in consideration of their small 
 size and the fact that they had not yet reached 
 their majority," the judge appointed for them a 
 curator, who "defended them with great 
 dignity "; and, although he was unable to pre- 
 vent the banishment of his wards, he obtained 
 for them the use of a piece of land, to which they 
 were permitted peaceably to retire. How they 
 were induced to go into this insect reservation 
 and to remain there we are not informed. The 
 Church, as already stated, claimed to possess the 
 power of effecting the desired migration by 
 means of her ban. If the insects disappeared, 
 she received full credit for accomplishing it; if 
 not, the failure was due to the sins of the people ; 
 in either case the prestige of the Church was 
 preserved and her authority left unimpaired. 
 
 In 1519, the commune of Stelvio, in Western 
 Tyrol, instituted criminal proceedings against 
 the moles or field-mice, 1 which damaged the 
 
 1 These animals are spoken of as unverniinftige Thierlein 
 genannt Lutmause. Lut might be derived from the Old 
 German lut (Laut, Schrei), in which case Lutmaus would 
 mean shrew-mouse ; but it is more probably from lutum 
 (loam, mould), and signifies mole or field-mouse. Field-mice 
 are exceedingly prolific rodents, and in modern as well as in 
 mediaeval times have often done grievous harm to husbandry 
 and arboriculture by consuming roots and fruits and gnawing 
 the bark of young trees. The recklessness of hunters in 
 exterminating foxes, hedgehogs, polecats, weasels, buzzards, 
 crows, kites, owls and similar beasts and birds, which are 
 destructive of field-mice, has frequently caused the latter to 
 multiply so as to become a terrible plague. This was the
 
 1 1 2 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 crops " by burrowing and throwing up the 
 earth, so that neither grass nor green thing 
 could grow." But " in order that the said mice 
 may be able to show cause for their conduct by 
 pleading their exigencies and distress," a pro- 
 curator, Hans Grinebner by name, was charged 
 with their defence, " to the end that they may 
 have nothing to complain of in these proceed- 
 ings." Schwarz Mining was the prosecuting 
 attorney, and a long list of witnesses is given, 
 who testified that the serious injury done by 
 these creatures rendered it quite impossible for 
 tenants to pay their rents. The counsel for the 
 defendants urged in favour of his clients the 
 many benefits which they conferred upon the 
 community, and especially upon the agricultural 
 class by destroying noxious insects and larvae 
 and by stirring up and enriching the soil, and 
 concluded by expressing the hope that, if they 
 should be sentenced to depart, some other 
 suitable place of abode might be assigned to 
 them. He demanded, furthermore, that they 
 should be provided with a safe conduct securing 
 them against harm or annoyance from dog, cat 
 or other foe. The judge recognized the reason- 
 ableness of the latter request, in its application 
 to the weaker and more defenceless of the 
 culprits, and mitigated the sentence of perpetual 
 banishment by ordering that " a free safe-con- 
 case in England in 1813-14, and in Germany in 1822, and 
 again in 1856.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 1 1 3 
 
 duct and an additional respite of fourteen days 
 be granted to all those which are with young 
 and to such as are yet in their infancy; but on 
 the expiration of this reprieve each and every 
 must be gone, irrespective of age or previous 
 condition of pregnancy." (Vide Appendix C.) 
 An old Swiss chronicler named Schilling 
 gives a full account of the prosecution and 
 anathematization of a species of vermin called 
 inger, which seems to have been a coleopterous 
 insect of the genus Brychus and very destruc- 
 tive to the crops. The case occurred in 1478 
 and the trial was conducted before the Bishop 
 of Lausanne by the authority and under the 
 jurisdiction of Berne. The first document re- 
 corded is a long and earnest declaration and 
 admonition delivered from the pulpit by a 
 Bernese parish-priest, Bernhard Schmid, who 
 begins by stating that his " dearly beloved " are 
 doubtless aware of the serious injury done by the 
 inger and of the suffering which they have 
 caused. The Leutpriester, as he is termed, 
 gives a brief history of the matter and of the 
 measures taken to procure relief. The mayor 
 and common council of Berne were besought in 
 their wisdom to devise some means of staying 
 the plague, and after much earnest deliberation 
 they held counsel with the Bishop of Lausanne, 
 who " with fatherly feeling took to heart so great 
 affliction and harm " and by an episcopal man- 
 date enjoined the inger from committing further 
 8
 
 1 14 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 depredations. After exhorting the people to 
 entreat God by " a common prayer from house 
 to house " to remove the scourge, he proceeds to 
 warn and threaten the vermin in the following 
 manner: "Thou irrational and imperfect crea- 
 ture, the inger, called imperfect because there 
 was none of thy species in Noah's ark at the time 
 of the great bane and ruin of the deluge, thou 
 art now come in numerous bands and hast done 
 immense damage in the ground and above the 
 ground to the perceptible diminution of food for 
 men and animals; and to the end that such 
 things may cease, my gracious Lord and 
 Bishop of Lausanne has commanded me in his 
 name to admonish you to withdraw and to 
 abstain ; therefore by his command and in his 
 name and also by virtue of the high and holy 
 trinity and through the merits of the Redeemer 
 of mankind, our Saviour Jesus Christ, and in 
 virtue of and obedience to the Holy Church, I 
 do command and admonish you, each and all, to 
 depart within the next six days from all places 
 where you have secretly or openly done or might 
 still do damage, also to depart from all fields, 
 meadows, gardens, pastures, trees, herbs, and 
 spots, where things nutritious to men and to 
 beasts spring up and grow, and to betake your- 
 selves to the spots and places, where you and 
 your bands shall not be able to do any harm 
 secretly or openly to the fruits and aliments 
 nourishing to men and beasts. In case, how-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 115 
 
 ever, you do not heed this admonition or obey 
 this command, and think you have some reason 
 for not complying with them, I admonish, notify 
 and summon you in virtue of and obedience to 
 the Holy Church to appear on the sixth day after 
 this execution at precisely one o'clock after 
 midday at Wifflisburg, there to justify your- 
 selves or to answer for your conduct through 
 your advocate before His Grace the Bishop 
 of Lausanne or his vicar and deputy. There- 
 upon my Lord of Lausanne or his deputy will 
 proceed against you according to the rules of 
 justice with curses and other exorcisms, as is 
 proper in such cases in accordance with legal 
 form and established practice." The priest then 
 exhorts his " dear children " devoutly to beg 
 and to pray on their knees with Paternosters and 
 Ave Marias to the praise and honour of the high 
 and holy trinity, and to invoke and crave the 
 divine mercy and help in order that the inger 
 may be driven away. (Vide Appendix D.) 
 
 There is no further record of proceedings at 
 this time, and it is highly probable that the 
 detection of some technical error rendered it 
 necessary to postpone the case, since this petti- 
 fogger's trick was almost always resorted to and 
 proved generally successful in procuring an 
 adjournment. At any rate either this or a pre- 
 cisely similar trial occurred in the following 
 year. Early in May 1479, the mayor and common 
 council of Berne sent copies of the monitorium
 
 u6 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 and citation issued by the Bishop of Lausanne 
 to their representative for distribution among the 
 priests of the afflicted parishes, in order that it 
 might be promulgated from their respective 
 pulpits and thus brought to the knowledge of 
 the delinquents. About a week later, on May 15, 
 the same authorities sent also a letter to the 
 Bishop of Lausanne asking for new instructions 
 in the matter, as they were not certain how they 
 should proceed, urging that immediate steps 
 should be taken, as the further delay would be 
 " utterly intolerable." This impatience would 
 seem to imply that the anathema had been 
 hanging fire for some time and that the prosecu- 
 tion was identical with that of the preceding 
 year. 
 
 The appointed term having elapsed and the 
 inger still persisting in their obduracy, the 
 mayor and common council of Berne issued the 
 following document conferring plenipotentiary 
 power of attorney on Thiiring Fricker to pro- 
 secute the case: " We, the mayor, council and 
 commune of the city of Berne, to all those of the 
 bishopric of Lausanne, who see, read, or hear 
 this letter. We make known that after mature 
 deliberation we have appointed, chosen and 
 deputed and by virtue of the present letter do 
 appoint, choose and depute the excellent Thiiring 
 Fricker, doctor of the liberal arts and of laws, 
 our now chancellor, to be our legal delegate 
 and agent and that of our commune, as well as
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 117 
 
 of all the lands and places of the bishopric of 
 Lausanne, which are directly or indirectly sub- 
 ject and appurtenant to us and of which a com- 
 plete list is herein contained. And indeed he has 
 assumed this general and special attorneyship, 
 whereof the one shall not be prejudicial to the 
 other, in the case which we have undertaken and 
 prosecute and have determined to prosecute before 
 the court of the right reverend in Christ Benedict 
 de Montferrand, Bishop of Lausanne, Count and 
 our most worthy Superior, against the noxious 
 host of the inger (brucorum), w r hich creeping 
 secretly in the earth devastate the fields, 
 meadows and all kinds of grain, whereby with 
 grievous wrong they do detriment to the ever- 
 living God, to whom the tithes belong, and to 
 men, who are nourished therewith and owe 
 obedience to him. In this cause he shall act 
 in our stead, and in the name of all of us collect- 
 ively and severally shall plead, demur, reply, 
 prove by witnesses, hear judgment or judg- 
 ments, appoint other defenders and in general 
 and specially do each and every thing which the 
 importance of the cause may demand and which 
 \ve ourselves in case of our presence would be 
 able to do. We solemnly promise in good faith 
 that all and the whole of what may be trans- 
 acted, performed, provided, pledged, and or- 
 dained in this cause by our aforesaid attorney 
 or by the proxy appointed by him shall be firmly 
 and gratefully observed by us, with the express
 
 1 1 8 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 renunciation of each and every thing that might 
 either by right or actually, in any wise, either 
 wholly or partially impair, weaken or assail our 
 ordainment, conclusion and determination, also 
 over against any reservation of right, which per- 
 mits a general renunciation, even if no special 
 reservation has preceded, with the exclusion of 
 every fraud and every deceit. In corroboration 
 and confirmation of the aforesaid we ratify this 
 letter with the warranty of our seal. Given on 
 the twenty-second of May I479-" 
 
 The trial began a couple of days later and was 
 conducted with less " of the law's delay " than 
 usual, inasmuch as it ended on the twenty-ninth 
 day of the same month. The defender of the 
 insects was a certain Jean Perrodet of Freiburg, 
 who according to all accounts was a very ineffi- 
 cient advocate and does not appear to have con- 
 tested the case with the ability and energy which 
 the interests of his clients required. The sen- 
 tence of the court with the appended anathema 
 of the bishop was as follows : "Ye accursed 
 uncleanness of the inger, which shall not be 
 called animals nor mentioned as such, ye have 
 been heretofore by virtue of the appeal and 
 admonition of our Lord of Lausanne enjoined 
 to withdraw from all fields, grounds and estates 
 of the bishopric of Lausanne, or within the next 
 six days to appear at Lausanne, through your 
 proctor, to set forth and to hear the cause of 
 your procedure, and to act with just judgment
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 119 
 
 either for or against you, pursuant to the said 
 citation. Thereupon our gracious Lords of 
 Berne solicited by their mandate such a day in 
 court at Lausanne, and there before the tribunal 
 renewed their plaint in their name and in that of 
 all the provinces of the said bishopric, and your 
 reply thereto through your proctor has been fully 
 heard, and the legal terms have been justly 
 observed by both parties, and a lawful decision 
 pronounced word for word in this wise : 
 
 " We, Benedict of Montferrand, Bishop of 
 Lausanne, etc., having heard the entreaty of the 
 high and mighty lords of Berne against the 
 inger and the ineffectual and rejectable answer 
 of the latter, and having thereupon fortified our- 
 selves with the Holy Cross, and having before 
 our eyes the fear of God, from whom alone all 
 just judgments proceed, and being advised in 
 this cause by a council of men learned in the 
 law, do therefore acknowledge and avow in this 
 our writing that the appeal against the detest- 
 able vermin and inger, which are harmful to 
 herbs, vines, meadows, grain and other fruits, 
 is valid, and that they be exorcised in the person 
 of Jean Perrodet, their defender. In conformity 
 therewith we charge and burden them with our 
 curse, and command them to be obedient and 
 anathematize them in the name of the Father, 
 the Son and the Holy Ghost, that they turn 
 away from all fields, grounds, enclosures, seeds, 
 fruits and produce, and depart. By virtue of
 
 i2o The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 the same sentence I declare and affirm that you 
 are banned and exorcised, and through the 
 power of Almighty God shall be called accursed 
 and shall daily decrease whithersoever you may 
 go, to the end that of you nothing shall remain 
 save for the use and profit of man. Adiungendo 
 aliquid in devotionem populi." The phrase das 
 si besivart iverden in die person Johannis Perro- 
 deti irs beschirmers does not imply that the 
 vermin or the devils, of which they were sup- 
 posed to be incarnations, were to be conjured 
 into him, but refer to him merely as their proctor 
 and legal representative. The results of the 
 prosecution, which had been awaited with 
 intense and anxious interest by the people, were 
 received with great joy, and the Bernese govern- 
 ment ordered a full report of the proceedings to 
 be made. The ecclesiastical anathema, how- 
 ever, proved to be brutum fulmen; nothing more 
 came of it, says Schilling, " owing to our sins." 
 Another chronicler adds that God permitted the 
 inger to remain as a plague and a punishment 
 until the people repented of their wickedness and 
 gave evidence of their love and gratitude to 
 Him, namely, by giving to the Church tithes of 
 what the insects had not destroyed. 
 
 The Swiss priest in his malediction declares 
 that the inger were not in Noah's ark and even 
 denies that they are animals properly speaking, 
 stigmatizing them as living corruption, products 
 of spontaneous generation perhaps, or more
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 121 
 
 probably creations of the devil. This position 
 was assumed in order to escape the gross im- 
 propriety and glaring incongruity of having the 
 Church of God curse the creatures which God 
 had made and pronounced very good, and after- 
 wards took pains to preserve from destruction 
 by the deluge. This difficulty, always a serious 
 one, was, as we have seen, one of the chief 
 points urged by the counsel for the defence in 
 favour of his clients. 
 
 Malleolus gives the following formula for 
 banning serpents and expelling them from 
 human habitations, inculcating incidentally the 
 iniquity of perjury and judicial injustice : " By 
 virtue of this ban and conjuration I command 
 you to depart from this house and cause it to be 
 as hateful and intolerable to you, as the man, 
 who knowingly bears false witness or pronounces 
 an unjust sentence, is to God." Sometimes the 
 exorcism was in the form of a prayer, as, for 
 example, in that used for the purgation and 
 disinfection of springs and water-courses: "O 
 Lord Jesus, thou who didst bless the river 
 Jordan and wast baptized in it and hast purified 
 and cleansed it to the end that it might be a 
 healing element for the redemption from sin, 
 bless, sanctify and purify this water, so that there 
 may be left in it nothing noxious, nothing 
 pestiferous or contagious, nothing pernicious, 
 but that everything in it may be pure and im- 
 maculate, in order that we may use whatever
 
 122 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 is created in it for our welfare and to thy glory, 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen." 
 
 In a Latin protocol of legal proceedings in 
 Crollolanza's Storia del Contado di Chiavenna 
 it is recorded that on June 26, 1659, Capt. J. B. 
 Pestalozzi came, in behalf of the communes of 
 Chiavenna, Mese, Gordona, Prada and Samolico, 
 before the commissioner Hartmann Planta and 
 brought complaint against certain caterpillars on 
 account of the devastations committed by them, 
 demanding that these hurtful creatures should 
 be summoned by the proper sheriff to appear in 
 court on June 28 at a specified hour in order 
 to have a curator and defender appointed, who 
 should answer for them to the plaintiffs. A 
 second document, dated June 28, 1659, and 
 signed by the notary Battista Visconti, certifies 
 that the said summons had been duly issued and 
 five copies of the same been posted each on a 
 tree in the five forests in the territory of the 
 aforesaid five communes. A third document of 
 the same date required the advocate of the 
 accused, Cesare de Peverello, to appear before 
 the court on the following Tuesday, July i, in 
 behalf of his recusant clients, who were charged 
 with trespassing upon the fields, gardens and 
 orchards and doing great damage therein, instead 
 of remaining in their habitat, the forest. The 
 prosecutors required that they should seek their 
 food in wild and wooded places and cease from 
 ravaging cultivated grounds. A fourth docu-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 123 
 
 ment contains an account of the trial ; the plead- 
 ings of the respective parties, so far as they are 
 preserved, do not differ essentially from those 
 already quoted. In the fifth and final document 
 the court recognizes the right of the caterpillars 
 to life, liberty, and the pursuit ot happiness, pro- 
 vided the exercise of this right " does not destroy 
 or impair the happiness of man, to whom all 
 lower animals are subject." Accordingly a 
 definite place of abode is to be assigned to them 
 and various places are proposed. The protocol 
 is incomplete, so that we are left in ignorance 
 of the ultimate decision. The whole is written 
 in execrable Latin quite worthy of the subject. 
 More than half-a-century later the Franciscan 
 friars of the cloister of St. Anthony in the 
 province of Piedade no Maranhao, Brazil, were 
 greatly annoyed by termites, which devoured 
 their food, destroyed their furniture, and even 
 threatened to undermine the walls of the 
 monastery. Application was made to the bishop 
 for an act of interdiction and excommunication, 
 and the accused were summoned to appear before 
 an ecclesiastical tribunal to give account of their 
 conduct. The lawyer appointed to defend them 
 urged the usual plea about their being God's 
 creatures and therefore entitled to sustenance, 
 and made a good point in the form of an argu- 
 mentum ad monachum by praising the industry 
 of his clients, the white ants, and declaring them 
 to be in this respect far superior to their pro-
 
 124 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 secutors, the Gray Friars. He also maintained 
 that the termites were not guilty of criminal 
 aggression, but were justified in appropriating 
 the fruits of the fields by the right derived from 
 priority of possession, inasmuch as they had 
 occupied the land long before the monks came 
 and encroached upon their domain. The trial 
 lasted for some time and called forth remarkable 
 displays of legal learning and forensic elo- 
 quence, with numerous citations of sacred and 
 profane authorities on both sides, and ended in a 
 compromise, by the terms of which the plaintiffs 
 were obliged to provide a suitable reservation 
 for the defendants, who were commanded to go 
 thither and to remain henceforth within the 
 prescribed limits. In the chronicles of the 
 cloister it is recorded, under date of Jan. 1713, 
 that no sooner was the order of the prelatic judge 
 promulgated by being read officially before the 
 hills of the termites than they all came out and 
 marched in columns to the place assigned. The 
 monkish annalist regards this prompt obedience 
 as conclusive proof that the Almighty endorsed 
 the decision of the court. [Cited by Emile Angel 
 on the authority of Manoel Bernardes' A T 0"ya Flo- 
 resta, ou Sylva de varios apophthegmas c ditos 
 sentencios espirituaes e moraes, etc. Vol. V., 
 Lisboa, 1747.] 
 
 About the middle of the sixteenth century the 
 inhabitants of several villages in Aargau were 
 greatly annoyed by swarms of gadflies and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 125 
 
 petitioned the Bishop of Constance for relief. In 
 the episcopal rescript, written and signed by the 
 vidame Georg Winterstetter, the people are 
 enjoined to abstain from dancing on Sundays 
 and feast days, from all forms of libidinousness, 
 gambling with cards or dice and other frivolities. 
 These injunctions are followed by prayer and the 
 usual formulas of conjuration and exorcism. 
 The original document was written in Latin and 
 preserved in the archives of Baden in Switzer- 
 land, but is now lost. In 1566 the Landamman 
 of Unterwalden, Johannes Wirz, took a German 
 translation of it home with him to be used in 
 case of need against the " vergifteten Wiirmer," 
 and deposited it in the archives of Obwalden, 
 where it still remains. It was published in 1898 
 by Dr. Merz. 
 
 In Protestant communities, the priest as exor- 
 cist has been superseded, to a considerable 
 extent, by the professional conjurer, who in 
 some portions of Europe is still employed to save 
 crops from devouring insects and similar 
 plagues. A curious instance of this kind is 
 recorded in Gorres' Historisch-Politische Blatter 
 for 1845 (Heft VII. p. 516). A Protestant gentle- 
 man in Westphalia, whose garden was devastated 
 by worms, after having tried divers vermicidal 
 remedies in vain, resolved to have recourse to a 
 conjurer. The wizard came and walked about 
 among the vegetables, touching them with a 
 wand and muttering enchantments. Some work-
 
 126 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 men, who were repairing the roof of a stable 
 near by, made fun of this hocus-pocus and began 
 to throw bits of lime at the conjurer. He re- 
 quested them to desist, and finally said : " If you 
 don't leave me in peace, I shall send all the 
 worms up on the roof." This threat only excited 
 the hilarity of the scoffers, who continued to ridi- 
 cule and disturb him in his incantations. There- 
 upon he went to the nearest hedge, cut a 
 number of twigs, each about a finger in length, 
 and placed them against the wall of the stable. 
 Soon the vermin began to abandon the plants 
 and, crawling in countless numbers over the 
 twigs and up the wall, took complete possession 
 of the roof. In less than an hour the men were 
 obliged to stop working and stood in the court 
 below covered with confusion and cabbage- 
 worms. 
 
 The writer, who relates this strange incident, 
 fully believes that it actually occurred, and 
 ascribes it to " the force of human faith and the 
 magnetic power of a firm will over nature." 
 This, too, is the theory held by Paracelsus, who 
 maintained that the effectiveness of a curse lay 
 in the energy of the will, by which the wish, so 
 to speak, concretes into a deed, just as anger 
 directs the arm and actualizes itself in a blow. 
 By " fervent desire " merely, without any 
 physical effort or aggressive act, he deemed it 
 possible to wound a man's body or to pierce it 
 through as with a sword. He also held that
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 127 
 
 brutes are more easily exorcised or accursed than 
 men, " for the spirit of man resists more than 
 that of the brute." Similar notions were enter- 
 tained nearly a century later by Jacob Boehme, 
 who defines magic as " doing in the spirit of the 
 will," an idea which finds more recent and more 
 scientific expression in Schopenhauer's doctrine 
 of " the objectivation of the will." Indeed, 
 Schopenhauer's postulate of the will as the sole 
 energy and actuality in the universe is only the 
 philosophic statement of an assumption, upon 
 which magicians and medicine-men, enchanters, 
 exorcists and anathematizers have acted more or 
 less in all ages. We have a striking illustration 
 of the workings of some such mysterious, quasi- 
 hyperphysical force in hypnotism, the reality of 
 which it is no longer possible to deny, however 
 wonderful and incomprehensible its manifesta- 
 tions may appear. 
 
 It is natural that a religion of individual initi- 
 ative and personal responsibilty, like Protestant- 
 ism, should put less confidence in theurgic 
 machinery and formularies of ex-cathedral 
 execration than a religion like Catholicism, in 
 which man's spiritual concerns are entrusted to 
 a hierarchical corporation to be managed accord- 
 ing to traditional and infallible methods. This 
 tendency crops out in a decree published at 
 Dresden, in 1559, by " Augustus Duke and 
 Elector," wherein he commends the "Christian 
 zeal of the worthy and pious parson, Daniel
 
 128 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Greysser," for having " put under ban the spar- 
 rows, on account of their unceasing and ex- 
 tremely vexatious chatterings and scandalous 
 unchastity during the sermon, to the hindrance 
 of God's word and of Christian devotion." But 
 the Saxon parson, unlike the Bishop of Trier, 
 did not expect that his ban would cause the 
 offending birds to avoid the church or to fall 
 dead on entering it. He relied less on the 
 directly coercive or withering action of the curse 
 than on the human agencies, which he might 
 thereby set at work for the accomplishment of his 
 purpose. By his proscription he put the culprits 
 out of the pale of public sympathy and protec- 
 tion and gave them over as a prey to the spoiler, 
 who was persuaded that he was doing a pious 
 work by exterminating them. It was solemnly 
 enjoined upon the hunter and the fowler to lie in 
 wait for the anathematized sparrows with guns 
 and with snares (durch manchcrlei visirliche 
 und listige Wege) ; and the Elector issued his 
 decree in order to enforce this duty on all good 
 Christians. (See Appendix E.) 
 
 A faded and somewhat droll survival of 
 ecclesiastical excommunication and exorcism is 
 the custom, still prevailing in European 
 countries and some portions of the United States, 
 of serving a writ of ejectment on rats or simply 
 sending them a friendly letter of advice in order 
 to induce them to quit any house, in which their 
 presence is deemed undesirable. Lest the rats
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 129 
 
 should overlook and thus fail to read the epistle, 
 it is rubbed with grease, so as to attract their 
 attention, rolled up and thrust into their holes. 
 Mr. William Wells Newell, in a paper on 
 " Conjuring Rats," printed in The Journal of 
 American Folk-Lore (Jan.-March, 1892), gives a 
 specimen of such a letter, dated, " Maine, 
 Oct. 31, 1888," and addressed in business style 
 to " Messrs. Rats and Co." The writer begins 
 by expressing his deep interest in the welfare of 
 said rats as well as his fears lest they should find 
 their winter quarters in No. i, Seaview Street, 
 uncomfortable and poorly supplied with suitable 
 food, since it is only a summer residence and is 
 also about to undergo repairs. He then suggests 
 that they migrate to No. 6, Incubator Street, 
 where they "can live snug and happy" in a 
 splendid cellar well stored with vegetables of all 
 kinds and can pass easily through a shed lead- 
 ing to a barn containing much grain. He con- 
 cludes by stating that he will do them no harm if 
 they heed his advice, otherwise he shall be forced 
 to use " Rough on Rats." This threat of resort- 
 ing to rat poison in case of the refusal to accept 
 his kind counsel is all that remains of the once 
 formidable anathema of the Church. 
 
 In Scotland, when these domestic rodents 
 became too troublesome, people of the lower 
 classes are wont to post the following notice on 
 the walls of their houses : 
 
 " Ratton and mouse, 
 Lea' the puir woman's house,
 
 1 30 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Gang awa' owre by to 'e mill, 
 
 And there ane and a' ye'll get your fill.'' 
 
 In order to make the conjuration effective some 
 particular abode must be assigned to them ; it is 
 not sufficient to bid them begone, but they are 
 to be told to go to a definite place. The fact that 
 they are usually sent across a river or brook may 
 indicate a lingering tradition of their demoniacal 
 character, since, according to a widespread 
 popular superstition, a water-course is a barrier 
 to hobgoblins and evil spirits : 
 
 "A running stream they dare na cross." 
 
 In this case the rats, as imps of Satan, having 
 reached their destination, would find it impos- 
 sible to return. 
 
 It was in Ireland, the native realm of bulls and 
 like incongruities, that conjuring or " rhyming " 
 rats seems to have been most common, if we may 
 judge from the manner in which it is alluded to 
 by the Elizabethan poets. Thus in As you 
 Like It Rosalind says in reference to Orlando's 
 verses: "I was never so be-rhymed since 
 Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which 
 I can hardly remember." Randolph declares : 
 
 "My poets 
 
 Shall with a satire, steep'd in gall and vinegar, 
 Rhime 'em to death, as they do rats in Ireland." 
 
 Ben Jonson is still more specific : 
 
 "Rhime 'em to death, as they do Irish rats, 
 In drumming tunes."
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 131 
 
 From this reference to the mode of conjuring it 
 appears that the repeating of the rhymes was 
 accompanied with the beating of a drum, as is 
 still the usage in France. From the very earliest 
 times a peculiar magical potency has been 
 ascribed to words woven into rhythmic form. 
 The fascination which metrical expression, even 
 as a mere jingle and jargon, still retains for the 
 youth of the individual was yet far more strongly 
 felt in the youth of the race. The simple song 
 was intoned as a spell and the rude chant 
 mumbled as a charm. 
 
 In France the conjuration of field-mice bears a 
 more distinctly religious stamp. On the first 
 Sunday in Lent, the so-called Feast of the. 
 Torches (la Fete des Brandons ou des Bures), 
 the peasants wander in all directions through the 
 fields and orchards with lighted torches of 
 twisted straw, uttering the following incantation, 
 which not only threatens to burn the whiskers of 
 obdurate mice, but also hints at the wine- 
 bibbing propensities of the curate : 
 
 " Sortez, sortez d'ici, mulcts ! 
 Ou je vais vous bruler les crocs ! 
 Quittez, quittez ces bles ! 
 Allez, vous trouverez 
 Dans la cave du cure 
 Plus a boire qu'a manger." 
 
 The form of imprecation varies in different 
 provinces, but usually includes some threat of 
 breaking the bones or burning the beards of the
 
 132 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 refractory rodents, in case they refuse to quit the 
 close, as in the following summons : 
 
 "Taupes et mulcts, 
 Sors de mon clos, 
 Ou je te casse les os ; 
 Barbassione ! Si tu viens dans non clos, 
 Je te brule la barbe jusqu'aux os." 
 
 The utterance of these words is emphasized by 
 loud and discordant noises of cat-calls, tin horns, 
 and similar instruments of " Callithumpian " 
 music. 
 
 Gregory, who was Bishop of Tours in the 
 latter half of the sixth century, states in his 
 History of the Franks (VIII. 35) that bronze 
 talismans representing dormice and serpents were 
 used in Paris to protect the city against the rav- 
 ages of these creatures; and when the town of Le 
 Mans was rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 
 1145, a toad with a gold chain round its neck, 
 was enclosed in a block of stone as a preservative 
 against venomous reptiles. (Le Corvasier : 
 Hist, des Eveques du Mans, 1648, p. 441. Cf. 
 Desnoyers : Recherches, etc., p. 7.) 
 
 The use of the above-mentioned means of con- 
 juration is unquestionably of very ancient date. 
 Thus in a treatise on agriculture entitled ra 
 yecuTTozn/ca and consisting of twenty books, written 
 in the tenth century by the Bithynian Byzantine, 
 Kassianos Bassos, the following prescription is 
 given for getting rid of field-mice : 
 
 " Take a slip of paper and write on it these
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 133 
 
 words : I adjure you, O mice, who dwell here 
 not to injure me yourselves nor to permit any 
 other mouse to do so; and I make over to you 
 this field (describing it). But should I find you 
 staying here after having been warned, with the 
 help of the mother of the gods I will cut you in 
 seven pieces." The author quotes this recipe, 
 in order, as he says, that nothing may remain 
 unrecorded, but expressly declares that he has no 
 confidence in its efficiency and advises the hus- 
 bandman to put his trust in good rat-bane. 
 Bassos derived the materials for his popular 
 encyclopaedia chiefly from the " Geoponics " 
 composed by Anatolios and Didymos some six 
 centuries earlier, and even most of his citations 
 of classical writers are taken from the same 
 sources. That the above-mentioned exorcism is 
 pagan in its origin is evident from the invocation 
 of the aid of Cybele for the destruction of dis- 
 obedient vermin. In a Christian conjuration the 
 Mother of God would have been substituted for 
 the mother of the gods, whom the Greeks revered 
 as the personification of all-creating and all-sus- 
 taining nature. The resemblance of this formula, 
 which the Greeks may have borrowed with the 
 worship of Cybele from the Phrygians, to the 
 Yankee's letter of advice is peculiarly interesting. 
 In the ancient conjuration the harmful or 
 undesirable animals were commanded to go to a 
 certain locality, set apart for them, and this 
 injunction was accompanied with dire threats in
 
 134 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 case of disobedience ; the milder epistolary form 
 of the present day is more advisory and persua- 
 sive and offers them inducements to migrate and 
 to take up their abode elsewhere. Sometimes 
 this kind counsel is given verbally, as, for 
 example, in Thuringia, \vhere it is customary to 
 get rid of cabbage-worms by going into the 
 garden, requesting them to depart, and call- 
 ing out: "In yonder village is church-ale 
 (Kirmes)" ; thus implying that they will find 
 better entertainment at this festival. (Witzschel : 
 Sagen, Sitten und Gebrauche atis Thiiringen. 
 Wien, 1878, p. 217.) The willingness of peasant 
 communities to ward off evil from themselves at 
 the expense of their neighbours is a survival of 
 the primitive ethics, which recognizes only the 
 rights of the family or tribe and treats all aliens 
 as foes. It is the same feeling that causes the 
 inhabitants of the Alps to erect so-called weather- 
 crosses (Wetterkreuse) for the purpose of avert- 
 ing thunder-storms and hailstones from them- 
 selves by diverting them into an adjacent valley. 
 This method of protection is based upon the 
 theory that tempests, hurricanes, and all violent 
 commotions of nature are the work of demons or 
 witches, who avoid the symbol of Christ's death 
 and the world's redemption and direct their fury 
 elsewhere. A like egotism is expressed in the 
 inscription on many houses of peasants entreat- 
 ing St. Florian to preserve their habitation from 
 flames and to set fire to others, as though the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 135 
 
 holy man must indulge his incendiary passion by 
 pouring out upon some human abode the blazing 
 vessel, which he is represented as bearing in his 
 hand. The inscription is the same as that with 
 which Reynard the Fox adorned his castle Male- 
 partus, and which might be translated : 
 
 " Saint Florian, thou martyr blessed, 
 Protect this house and burn the rest." 
 
 Not only were insects, reptiles and small 
 mammals, such as rats and mice, legally pro- 
 secuted and formally excommunicated, but 
 judicial penalties, including capital punishment, 
 were also inflicted upon larger quadrupeds. In 
 the Report and Researches on this subject, pub- 
 lished by Berriat-Saint-Prix in the Memoirs of 
 the Royal Society of Antiquaries of France 
 (Paris, 1829, Tome VIII. pp. 403-50), numerous 
 extracts from the original records of such pro- 
 ceedings are given, and also a list of the kinds 
 of animals thus tried and condemned, extending 
 from the beginning of the twelfth to the middle 
 of the eighteenth century, and comprising in all 
 ninety-three cases. This list has been enlarged 
 by D'Addosio so as to cover the period from 
 824 to 1845, and to include one hundred and 
 forty-four prosecutions resulting in the execu- 
 tion or excommunication of the accused, but 
 even this record is by no means complete. (Vide 
 Appendix F for a still fuller list.) 
 
 The culprits are a miscellaneous crew, consist- 
 ing chiefly of caterpillars, flies, locusts, leeches,
 
 136 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 snails, slugs, worms, weevils, rats, mice, moles, 
 turtle-doves, pigs, bulls, cows, cocks, dogs, 
 asses, mules, mares and goats. Only those cases 
 are reported in which the accused were found 
 guilty; of these prosecutions, according to the 
 above-mentioned registers, two belong to the 
 ninth century, one to the eleventh, three to the 
 twelfth, two to the thirteenth, six to the four- 
 teenth, thirty-four to the fifteenth, forty-five to 
 the sixteenth, forty-three to the seventeenth, 
 seven to the eighteenth and one to the nineteenth 
 century. To this list might be added other cases, 
 such as the prosecution and malediction of 
 noxious insects at Glurns in the Tyrol in 1519, at 
 Als in Jutland in 1711, at Bouranton in 1733, at 
 Lyo in Denmark in 1805-6, and at Pozega in 
 Slavonia in 1866. In the latter case one of the 
 largest of the locusts was seized and tried and 
 then put to death by being thrown into the water 
 with anathemas on the whole species. A few 
 years ago swarms of locusts devastated the 
 region near Kallipolis in Turkey, and a petition 
 was sent by the Christian population to the monks 
 of Mount Athos begging them to bear in solemn 
 procession through the fields the girdle of St. 
 Basilius, in order to expel the insects. This 
 request was granted, and as the locusts gradually 
 disappeared, because there was little or nothing 
 left for them to eat, the orthodox of the Greek 
 Church from the bishop to the humblest laymen 
 firmly believed or at least maintained that a
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 137 
 
 miracle had been wrought. Pious Moham- 
 medans exorcise and ostracize locusts and other 
 harmful insects by reading the Koran aloud in 
 the ravaged fields, as was recently done at 
 Denislue in Asia Minor with satisfactory results. 
 Also as late as 1864 at Pleternica in Slavonia, a 
 pig was tried and executed for having malici- 
 ously bitten off the ears of a female infant aged 
 one year. The flesh of the condemned animal 
 was cut in pieces and thrown to the dogs, and 
 the head of the family, in which the pig lived, as 
 is the custom of pigs among the peasants of that 
 country, was put under bonds to provide a dowry 
 for the mutilated child, so that the loss of her 
 ears might not prove to be an insuperable 
 obstacle to her marriage. (Amira, p. 578.) It 
 would be incorrect to infer from the tables just 
 referred to that no judicial punishment of animals 
 occurred in the tenth century or that the fifteenth, 
 sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries were peculi- 
 arly addicted to such practices. It is well known 
 that during some of the darkest periods of the 
 Middle Ages and even in later times the regis- 
 ters of the courts were very imperfectly kept, and 
 in many instances the archives have been entirely 
 destroyed. It is highly probable, therefore, that 
 the cases of capital prosecution and conviction of 
 animals, which have been collected and printed 
 by Berriat-Saint-Prix and others, however 
 thorough their investigations may have been, 
 constitute only a very small percentage of those 
 which actually took place.
 
 138 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Beasts were often condemned to be burned 
 alive; and strangely enough, it was in the latter 
 half of the seventeenth century, an age of com- 
 parative enlightenment, that this cruel penalty 
 seems to have been most frequently inflicted. 
 Occasionally a merciful judge adhered to the 
 letter of the law and curbed its barbarous spirit 
 by sentencing the culprit to be slightly singed 
 and then to be strangled before being committed 
 to the flames. Sometimes brutes were doomed 
 to be buried alive. Thus we have the receipt 
 of " Phelippart, sergeant of high justice of the 
 city of Amiens," for the sum of sixteen soldi, 
 in payment for services rendered in March 1463, 
 in " having buried in the earth two pigs, which 
 had torn and eaten with their teeth a little child 
 in the faubourg of Amiens, w r ho for this cause 
 passed from life to death (etoit alle de vie a 
 trepas)." In 1557, on the 6th of December, a 
 pig in the Commune of Saint-Quentin was con- 
 demned to be " buried all alive " (enfoui tout 
 vif), " for having devoured a little child in 
 1'hostel de la Couronne." Again, a century 
 earlier, in 1456, two pigs were subjected to this 
 punishment, " on the vigil of the Holy Virgin," 
 at Oppenheim on the Rhine, for having killed a 
 child. More than three centuries later the same 
 means were employed for curing murrain, which 
 in the summer of 1796 had broken out at Beut- 
 elsbach in Wiirtemberg and carried off many 
 head of cattle. By the advice of a French 
 veterinary doctor, who was quartered there with
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 139 
 
 the army of General Moreau, the town bull was 
 buried alive at the crossroads in the presence of 
 several hundred persons. We are not informed 
 whether this sacrifice proved to be a sufficiently 
 " powerful medicine " to stay the epizootic 
 plague ; the noteworthy fact is that the super- 
 stitious rite was prescribed and performed, not 
 by an Indian magician or an African sorcerer, 
 but by an official of the French republic. 
 
 Animals are said to have been even put to the 
 rack in order to extort confession. It is not to 
 be supposed that, in such cases, the judge had 
 the slightest expectation that any confession 
 would be made; he wished merely to observe 
 all forms prescribed by the law, and to set in 
 motion the whole machinery of justice before 
 pronouncing judgment. The statement of a 
 French writer, Arthur Mangin (L'Homme et la 
 Bete. Paris, 1872, p. 344), that " the cries which 
 they uttered under torture were received as con- 
 fessions of guilt," is absurd. No such notion was 
 ever entertained by their tormentor. " The ques- 
 tion," which under the circumstances would seem 
 to be only a wanton and superfluous act of 
 cruelty, was nevertheless an important element in 
 determining the final decision, since the sentence 
 of death could be commuted into banishment, 
 whipping, incarceration or some milder form of 
 punishment, provided the criminal had not con- 
 fessed his guilt under torture. The use of the 
 rack might be, therefore, a merciful means of 
 escaping the gallows. Appeals were sometimes
 
 140 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 made to higher tribunals and the judgments of 
 the lower courts annulled or modified. In one 
 instance a sow and a she-ass were condemned to 
 be hanged; on appeal, and after a ne\v trial, 
 they were sentenced to be simply knocked on 
 the head. Occasionally an appeal led to the 
 acquittal of the accused. 
 
 In 1266, at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris, 
 a pig convicted of having eaten a child was 
 publicly burned by order of the monks of Sainte 
 Genevieve. In 1386, the tribunal of Falaise 
 sentenced a sow to be mangled and maimed in 
 the head and forelegs, and then to be hanged, 
 for having torn the face and arms of a child and 
 thus caused its death. Here we have a strict 
 application of the lex talionis, the primitive re- 
 tributive principle of taking an eye for an eye 
 and a tooth for a tooth. As if to make the 
 travesty of justice complete, the sow was dressed 
 in man's clothes and executed on the public 
 square near the city-hall at an expense to the 
 state of ten sous and ten deniers, besides a pair 
 of gloves to the hangman. The executioner was 
 provided with new gloves in order that he might 
 come from the discharge of his duty, meta- 
 phorically at least, with clean hands, thus indi- 
 cating that, as a minister of justice, he incurred 
 no guilt in shedding blood. He was no common 
 pig-killer, but a public functionary, a " master 
 of high works " (mattre des hautes ceuvres), as 
 he was officially styled. (Vide Appendix G.) 
 
 We may add that the west wall of the south
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 141 
 
 branch of the transept in the Church of the 
 Holy Trinity (Sainte-Trinite) at Falaise in 
 Normandy was formerly adorned with a fresco- 
 painting of this execution, which is mentioned 
 in Statistique de Falaise (1827, t. I. 83), and 
 more fully described by 1'Abbe Pierre-Gilles 
 Langevin, in his Recherches Historiques sur 
 Falaise (1814, p. 146). In a Supplement (p. 12) 
 to this work, published several years later, the 
 Abbe states that, about the year 1820, the entire 
 church, including the fresco, was whitewashed, 
 so that the picture has since then been invisible, 
 and, so far as can be ascertained, no engraving 
 or other copy of it has ever been made. Un- 
 fortunately, too, as the same writer informs us, 
 la chdsse de la banniere (banner-holder) was 
 fastened to the wall of the church on this very 
 spot, thus covering and permanently destroying 
 at least a portion of the painting. 
 
 In 1394, a pig was found guilty of " having 
 killed and murdered a child in the parish of 
 Roumaygne, in the county of Mortaing, for 
 which deed the said pig was condemned to be 
 haled and hanged by Jehan Petit, lieutenant of 
 the bailiff." The work was really done by the 
 hangman (pendart), Jehan Micton, who received 
 for his services the sum of "fifty souls tournois." 
 (Vide Appendix H.) In another case the deputy 
 bailiff of Mantes and Meullant presented a bill, 
 dated March 15, 1403, which contained the 
 following items of expense incurred for the in-
 
 142 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 carceration and execution of an infanticide 
 sow : 
 
 " Cost of keeping her in jail, six sols parisis. 
 " Item, to the master of high works, who came 
 from Paris to Meullant to perform the said 
 execution by comand and authority of the 
 said bailiff, our master, and of the procur- 
 ator of the king, fifty-four sols parisis. 
 ' Item, for a carriage to take her to justice, six 
 
 sols parisis. 
 " Item, for cords to bind and hale her, two 
 
 sols eight deniers parisis. 
 " Item, for gloves, two deniers parisis." 
 This account, which amounted in all to sixty- 
 nine sols eight deniers parisis, was examined 
 and approved by the auditor of the court, De 
 Baudemont, who affixed to it his own seal with 
 signature and paraph and " in further confirm- 
 ation and approbation thereof caused it to be 
 sealed with the seal of the Chatellany of Meul- 
 lant, on the 1 5th day of March in the year 
 1403." (See Appendix I.) In the following 
 year a pig was executed at Rouvres for the same 
 offence. 
 
 Brutes and human criminals were confined in 
 the same prison and subjected to the same treat- 
 ment. Thus " Toustain Pincheon, keeper of 
 the prisons of our lord the king in the town of 
 Pont de Larche," acknowledges the receipt, 
 " through the hand of the honourable and wise 
 man, Jehan Monnet, sheriff (vicomte) of the said
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 143 
 
 town, of nineteen sous six deniers tournois for 
 having found the king's bread for the prisoners 
 detained, by reason of crime, in the said prison." 
 The jailer gives the names of the persons in 
 custody, and concludes the list with " Item, one 
 pig, conducted into the said prison and kept 
 there from the 24th of June, 1408, inclusive, till 
 the 1 7th of the folowing July," when it was 
 hanged " for the crime of having murdered 
 and killed a little child " (pource que icellui 
 pore avoit muldry et tue ung pettit enfant}. For 
 the pig's board the jailer charged two deniers 
 tournois a day, the same as for boarding 
 a man, thus placing the porker, even in respect 
 to its maintenance, on a footing of perfect 
 equality with the human prisoners. He also 
 puts into the account " ten deniers tournois for 
 a rope, found and furnished for the purpose of 
 tying the said pig that it might not escape." 
 The correctness of the charges is certified to by 
 " Jean Gaulvant, sworn tabellion of our lord 
 the king in the viscounty of Pont de Larche." 
 (Vide Appendix J.) Again in 1474, the official 
 of the Bishop of Lausanne sentenced a pig to 
 be hanged "until death ensueth," for having 
 devoured an infant in its cradle in the vicinity 
 of Oron, and to remain suspended from the gal- 
 lows for a certain length of time as a warning to 
 wrong-doers. It is also expressly stated that, 
 in 1585, the body of a pig, which had been 
 executed for the murder of a child at Saint-
 
 144 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Omer, at the hostelry of Mortier d'Or, was left 
 hanging " for a long space " on a gibbet in a 
 field near the highway. (Derheims : Histoire 
 de Saint-Omer, p. 327.) A little later a similar 
 spectacle met the eyes of Guy Pape, as he was 
 going to Chalons-sur-Marne in Champagne, to 
 pay homage to King Henry IV. In his own 
 words : dum ibam ad civitatem Cathalani in 
 Campania ad Re gem tune ibi existentem, vidi 
 quemdam porcum, in furcis suspensum, qui dice- 
 batur occidisse quemdam puerum. (Quaestio 
 CCXXXVIII : De poena bruti delinquentis. 
 Lugduni, MDCX.) 
 
 On the 5th of September, 1379, as two herds 
 of swine, one belonging to the commune and the 
 other to the priory of Saint-Marcel-le-Jeussey, 
 were feeding together near that town, three sows 
 of the communal herd, excited and enraged by 
 the squealing of one of the porklings, rushed 
 upon Perrinot Muet, the son of the swine- 
 keeper, and before his father could come to his 
 rescue, threw him to the ground and so severely 
 injured him that he died soon afterwards. The 
 three sows, after due process of law, were con- 
 demned to death ; and as both the herds had 
 hastened to the scene of the murder and by their 
 cries and aggressive actions show r ed that they 
 approved of the assault, and were ready and even 
 eager to become participes criminis, they were 
 arrested as accomplices and sentenced by the 
 court to suffer the same penalty. But the prior,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 145 
 
 Friar Humbert de Poutiers, not willing to en- 
 dure the loss of his swine, sent an humble 
 petition to Philip the Bold, then Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, praying that both the herds, with the 
 exception of the three sows actually guilty of 
 the murder, might receive a full and free pardon. 
 The duke lent a gracious ear to this supplication 
 and ordered that the punishment should be re- 
 mitted and the swine released. (Vide Appendix 
 K.) 
 
 A peculiar custom is referred to in the proces 
 verbal of the prosecution of a porker for infanti- 
 cide, dated May 20, 1572. The murder was 
 committed within the jurisdiction of the monas- 
 tery of Moyen-Montier, where the case was 
 tried and the accused sentenced to be " hanged 
 and strangled on a gibbet." The prisoner was 
 then bound with a cord and conducted to a 
 cross near the cemetery, where it was formally 
 given over to an executioner from Nancy. 
 " From time immemorial," we are told, " the 
 justiciary of the Lord Abbot of Moyen-Montier 
 has been accustomed to consign to the provost 
 of Saint-Diez, near this cross, condemned crim- 
 inals, wholly naked, that they may be executed ; 
 but inasmuch as this pig is a brute beast, he 
 has delivered the same bound with a cord, with- 
 out prejudicing or in any wise impairing the 
 right of the Lord Abbot to deliver condemned 
 criminals wholly naked." The pig must not 
 wear a rope unless the right to do without it be 
 10
 
 146 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 expressly reserved, lest some human culprit, 
 under similar circumstances, should claim to 
 be entitled to raiment. 
 
 " 'Twill be recorded for a precedent ; 
 And many an error, by the same example 
 Will rush into the state : it cannot be." 
 
 In the case of a mule condemned to be burned 
 alive together with a man guilty of buggery, at 
 Montpellier, in 1565, as the quadruped was 
 vicious and inclined to kick (vitiosus et calcitro- 
 sus), the executioner cut off its feet before con- 
 signing it to the flames. This mutilation was 
 an arbitrary and extra-judicial act, dictated solely 
 by considerations of personal convenience. 
 Hangmen often indulged in capricious and 
 supererogatory cruelty in the exercise of their 
 patibulary functions, and mediaeval as well as 
 later writers on criminal jurisprudence repeatedly 
 complain of this evil and call for reform. Thus 
 Damhouder, in his Rerum Criminalium Praxis 
 (cap. de carnifice, p. 234), urges magistrates to 
 be more careful in selecting persons for this im- 
 portant office, and not to choose evil-doers, 
 " assiduous gamblers, public whoremongers, 
 malicious back-biters, impious blasphemers, as- 
 sassins, thieves, murderers, robbers, and other 
 violators of the law as vindicators of justice. 
 Indeed, these hardened wretches sometimes took 
 the law into their own hands. For example, on 
 the Qth of June, 1576, at Schweinfurt in Fran- 
 conia, a sow, which had bitten off the ear and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 147 
 
 torn the hand of a carpenter's child, was given 
 into custody, whereupon the hangman, without 
 legal authority, took it to the gallows-green 
 (vSchindrasen) and there " hanged it publicly 
 to the disgrace and detriment of the city." For 
 this impudent usurpation of judiciary powers 
 Jack Ketch was forced to flee and never dared 
 return. Hence arose the proverbial phrase 
 Schweinfurter Sauhenker (Schweinfurt sow- 
 hangman), used to characterize a low and lawless 
 ruffian and vile fellow of the baser sort. It was 
 not the mere killing of the sow, but the execu- 
 tion without a judicial decision, the insult and 
 contempt of the magistracy and the judicatory 
 by arrogating their functions, that excited the 
 public wrath and official indignation. 
 
 Buggery (offensa cujus nominatio crimen est, 
 as it is euphemistically designated in legal docu- 
 ments) was uniformly punished by putting to 
 death both parties implicated, and usually by 
 burning them alive. The beast, too, is punished 
 and both are burned (punitur etiam pecus et 
 ambo comburuntur), says Guillielmus Benedic- 
 tinus, a writer on law, who lived about the end 
 of the fourteenth century. Thus, in 1546, a 
 man and a cow were hanged and then burned 
 by order of the parliament of Paris, the supreme 
 court of France. In 1466, the same tribunal 
 condemned a man and a sow to be burned at 
 Corbeil. Occasionally interment was substituted 
 for incremation. Thus in 1609, at Niederrad,
 
 148 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 a man and a mare were executed and their bodies 
 buried in the same carrion-pit. On the i2th 
 of September, 1606, the mayor of Loens de 
 Chartres, on complaint of the dean, canons, and 
 chapter of the cathedral of Chartres, condemned 
 a man named Guillaume Guyart to be " hanged 
 and strangled on a gibbet in reparation and 
 punishment of sodomy, whereof the said Guyart 
 is declared accused, attainted and convicted." 
 A bitch, his accomplice, was sentenced to be 
 knocked on the head (assommee) by the execu- 
 tioner of high justice and " the dead bodies of 
 both to be burned and reduced to ashes." It 
 is furthermore added that if the said Guyart, 
 who seems to have contumaciously given leg- 
 bail, cannot be seized and apprehended in 
 person, the sentence shall, in his case, be 
 executed in effigy by attaching his likeness in 
 painting to the gibbet. It was also decreed that 
 all the property of the absconder should be con- 
 fiscated and the sum of one hundred and fifty 
 livres be adjudged to the plaintiffs, out of which 
 the costs of the trial were to be defrayed. (Vide 
 Appendix L.) This disgusting crime appears 
 to have been very common ; at least Ayrault in 
 his Ordre Judiciaire, published in 1606, states 
 that he has many times (multoties) seen brute 
 beasts put to death for this cause. In his Mag- 
 nalia 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 149 
 
 unparalleled wretch, one Potter by name, about 
 sixty years of age, executed for damnable Besti- 
 alities." He had been a member of the Church 
 for twenty years and was noted for his piety, 
 " devout in worship, gifted in prayer, forward 
 in edifying discourse among the religious, and 
 zealous in reforming the sins of other people." 
 Yet this monster, who is described as possessed 
 by an unclean devil, ' c lived in most infandous 
 Buggeries for no less than fifty years together, 
 and now at the gallows there were killed before 
 his eyes a cow, two heifers, three sheep and two 
 sows, with all of which he had committed his 
 brutalities. His wife had seen him confound- 
 ing himself with a bitch ten years before; and 
 he then excused himself as well as he could, 
 but conjured her to keep it secret." He after- 
 wards hanged the bitch, probably as a sort of 
 vicarious atonement. According to this account 
 he must have begun to practice sodomy when 
 he was ten years of age, a vicious precocity 
 which the author would doubtless explain on 
 the theory of diabolical possession. In 1681, a 
 habitual sodomite, who had been wont to defile 
 himself with greyhounds, cows, swine, sheep 
 and all manner of beasts, was brought to trial 
 together with a mare, at Wiinschelburg in 
 Silesia, where both were burned alive. In 1684, 
 on the 3rd of May, a bugger was beheaded at 
 Ottendorf, and the mare, his partner in crime, 
 knocked on the head ; it was expressly enjoined
 
 150 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 that in burning the bodies the man's should lie 
 underneath that of the beast. In the following 
 year, fourteen days before Christmas, a journey- 
 man tailor, " who had committed the unnatural 
 deed of carnal lewdness with a mare," was 
 burned at Striga together with the mare. 
 
 For the same offence Benjamin Deschauffour 
 was condemned, May 25, 1726, to be tied to a 
 stake and there burned alive " together with the 
 minutes of the trial;" his ashes were strewed to 
 the wind and his estates seized and, after the 
 deduction of a fine of three thousand livres, con- 
 fiscated to the benefit of his Majesty. In the 
 case of Jacques Perron, who was taken in the 
 act of coition with a she-ass at Vanvres in 1750, 
 and after due process of law, sentenced to death, 
 the animal was acquitted on the ground that she 
 was the victim of violence and had not partici- 
 pated in her master's crime of her own free-will. 
 The prior of the convent, who also performed the 
 duties of parish priest, and the principal in- 
 habitants of the commune of Vanvres signed a 
 certificate stating that they had known the said 
 she-ass for four years, and that she had always 
 shown herself to be virtuous and well-behaved 
 both at home and abroad and had never given 
 occasion of scandal to any one, and that there- 
 fore " they were willing to bear witness that she 
 is in word and deed and in all her habits of life 
 a most honest creature." This document, given 
 at Vanvres on Sept. 19, 1750, and signed by
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 1 5 1 
 
 " Pintuel Prieur Cure " and the other attestors, 
 was produced during the trial and exerted a 
 decisive influence upon the judgment of the 
 court. As a piece of exculpatory evidence it 
 may be regarded as unique in the annals of 
 criminal prosecutions. 
 
 The Carolina or criminal code of the emperor 
 Charles V., promulgated at the diet of Ratisbon 
 in 1532, ordained that sodomy in all its forms 
 and degrees should be punished with death by 
 fire "according to common custom" ("so ein 
 Mensch mit einem Viehe, Mann mit Mann, 
 Weib mit Weib, Unkeuschheit treibet, die haben 
 auch das Leben verwircket, und man soil sie der 
 gemeinen Gewohnheit nach mit dem Feuer vom 
 Leben zum Tode richten." Art. 116.), but stipu- 
 lated that, if for any reason the punishment of 
 the sodomite should be mitigated, the same 
 measure of mercy should be shown to the beast. 
 This principle is reaffirmed by Benedict Carpzov 
 in his Pratica Nova Rerum Criminalium (Wit- 
 tenberg, 1635), in which he states that " if for 
 any cause the sodomite shall be punished only 
 with the sword, then the beast participant of 
 his crime shall not be burned, but shall be struck 
 dead and buried by the knacker or field-master 
 (Caviller oder Feldmeister)." The bugger was 
 also bound to compensate the owner for the loss 
 of the animal, or, if he left no property, the 
 value must be paid out of the public treasury. 
 " If the criminal act was not fully consummated,
 
 152 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 then the human offender was publicly scourged 
 and banished, and the animal, instead of being 
 killed, was put away out of sight in order that 
 no one might be scandalized thereby " [Jacobi 
 Dopleri, Theatrum Poenarum Suppliciorum et 
 Executionum Criminalium, oder Schau-Platz 
 derer Leibes-und Leb ens-Straff en, etc. Sonders- 
 hausen, 1693, II. p. 151.] 
 
 All Christian legislation on this subject is 
 simply an application and amplification of the 
 Mosaic law as recorded in Exodus xxii. 19 and 
 Leviticus xx. 13-16, just as the cruel persecu- 
 tions and prosecutions for witchcraft in mediaeval 
 and modern times derive their authority and jus- 
 tification from the succinct and peremptory com- 
 mand : " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." 
 In the older criminal codes two kinds or degrees 
 of sodomy are mentioned, gravius and gravis- 
 simum; the former being condemned in the 
 thirteenth verse and the latter in the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth verses of Leviticus. Dopier tells 
 some strange stories of the results of the pecca- 
 tum gravissimum ; and the fact that a sober 
 writer on jurisprudence could believe and seri- 
 ously narrate such absurdities, furnishes a 
 curious contribution to the history of human 
 credulity. 
 
 It is rather odd that Christian law-givers 
 should have adopted a Jewish code against 
 sexual intercourse with beasts and then enlarged 
 it so as to include the Jews themselves. The
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 153 
 
 question was gravely discussed by jurists, 
 whether cohabitation of a Christian with a 
 Jewess or vice versa constitutes sodomy. Dam- 
 houder (Prax. Rcr. Crim. 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 para- 
 mour, "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." 
 
 But to resume the subject of the perpetration 
 of felonious homicide by animals, on the loth 
 of January, 1457, a sow was convicted of 
 " murder flagrantly committed on the person of 
 Jehan Martin, aged five years, the son of Jehan 
 Martin of Savigny," and sentenced to be 
 " hanged by the hind feet to a gallows-tree (a 
 ung arbre esprone)." Her six sucklings, being 
 found stained with blood, were included in the 
 indictment as accomplices; but " in lack of any 
 positive proof that they had assisted in mangling 
 the deceased, they were restored to their owner, 
 on condition that he should give bail for their 
 appearance, should further evidence be forth-
 
 154 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 coming to prove their complicity in their mother's 
 crime." Above three weeks later, on the 2nd 
 of February, to wit " on the Friday after the 
 feast of Our Lady the Virgin," the sucklings 
 were again brought before the court ; and, as 
 their owner, Jehan Bailly, openly repudiated 
 them and refused to be answerable in any wise 
 for their future good conduct, they were de- 
 clared, as vacant property, forfeited to the noble 
 damsel Katherine de Barnault, Lady of Savigny. 
 This case is particularly interesting on account 
 of the completeness with which the proces verbal 
 has been preserved. (See Appendix M.) 
 
 Sometimes a fine was imposed upon the owner 
 of the offending animal, as was the case with 
 Jehan Delalande and his wife, who were con- 
 demned, on the i8th of April, 1499, by 
 the bailiff of the Abbey of Josaphat near Char- 
 tres, to pay a fine of eighteen francs and to be 
 confined in prison until this sum should be paid, 
 " on account of the murder of a child named 
 Gilon, aged five and a half years or thereabouts, 
 perpetrated by a porker, aged three months or 
 thereabouts." The pig was condemned to be 
 " hanged and executed by justice." The owners 
 were punished because they were supposed to 
 have been culpably negligent of the child, who 
 had been confided to their care and keeping, and 
 not because they had, in the eye of the law, any 
 proprietary responsibility for the infanticidal 
 animal. The mulct implied remissness on their
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 155 
 
 part as guardians or foster-parents of the infant. 
 In general, as we have seen, the owner of the 
 blood-guilty beast was considered wholly blame- 
 less and sometimes even remunerated for his 
 loss. (Vide Appendix N.) 
 
 According to the laws of the Bogos, a pastoral 
 and nominally Christian tribe of Northern Abys- 
 sinia, a bull, cow or any other animal which 
 kills a man is put to death; the owner of the 
 homicidal beast is not held in any wise respons- 
 ible for its crime, nevertheless he practically in- 
 curs a somewhat heavy penalty by not receiving 
 any compensation for the loss of his property. 
 This exercise of justice is quite common among 
 the tribes of Central Africa. In Montenegro, 
 horses, oxen and pigs have been recently tried 
 for homicide and put to death, unless the owner 
 redeemed them by paying a ransom. 
 
 On the i4th of June, 1494, a young pig 
 was arrested for having " strangled and defaced 
 a young child in its cradle, the son of Jehan 
 Lenfant, a cowherd on the fee-farm of Clermont, 
 and of Gillon his wife," and proceeded against 
 "as justice and reason would desire and re- 
 quire." Several witnesses were examined, who 
 testified " on their oath and conscience " that 
 " on the morning of Easter Day, as the father 
 was guarding cattle and his wife Gillon was 
 absent in the village of Dizy, the infant being 
 left alone in its cradle, the said pig entered 
 during the said time the said house and dis-
 
 156 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 figured and ate the face and neck of the said 
 child, which, in consequence of the bites and 
 defacements inflicted by the said pig, departed 
 this life (de ce siecle trepassa)." The sentence 
 pronounced by the judge was as follows, " We, 
 in detestation and horror of the said crime, and 
 to the end that an example may be made and 
 justice maintained, have said, judged, sentenced, 
 pronounced and appointed, that the said porker, 
 now detained as a prisoner and confined in the 
 said abbey, shall be by the master of high works 
 hanged and strangled on a gibbet of wood near 
 and adjoinant to the gallows and high place of 
 execution belonging to the said monks, being 
 contiguous to their fee-farm of Avin." The 
 crime was committed " on the fee-farm of Cler- 
 mont-lez-Montcornet, appertaining in all matters 
 of high, mean and base justice to the monks of 
 the order of Premonstrants," and the prosecu- 
 tion was conducted by " Jehan Levoisier, licen- 
 ciate in law, the grand mayor of the church 
 and monastery of St. Martin de Laon of the 
 order of Premonstrants and the aldermen of the 
 same place." The plaintiffs were the friars, who 
 preferred charges against the pig and procured 
 the evidence necessary to its conviction. (Vide 
 Appendix O.) 
 
 In 1394, a pig was hanged at Mortaign for 
 having sacrilegiously eaten a consecrated wafer; 
 and in a case of infanticide, it is expressly stated 
 in the plaintiff's declaration that the pig killed
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 157 
 
 the child and ate of its flesh, " although it was 
 Friday," and this violation of the jejunium 
 sextae, prescribed by the Church, was urged by 
 the prosecuting attorney and accepted by the 
 court as a serious aggravation of the porker's 
 offence. 
 
 Nothing would be easier than to multiply ex- 
 amples of this kind. Infanticidal swine were 
 hanged in 1419 at Labergement-le-Duc, in 1420 
 at Brochon, in 1435 at Trocheres, and in 1490 
 at Abbeville; the last-mentioned execution took 
 place " under the auspices of the aldermanity 
 and with the tolling of the bells." It was evi- 
 dently regarded as a very solemn affair. The 
 records of mediaeval courts, the chronicles of 
 mediaeval cloisters, and the archives of mediaeval 
 cities, especially such as were under episcopal 
 sovereignty and governed by ecclesiastical law, 
 are full of such cases. The capital punishment 
 of a dumb animal for its crimes seems to us so 
 irrational and absurd, that we can hardly believe 
 that sane and sober men were ever guilty of such 
 folly ; yet the idea was quite familiar to our 
 ancestors even in Shakespeare's day, in the 
 brilliant Elizabethan age of English literature, 
 as is evident from a passage in Gratiano's invec- 
 tive against Shylock : 
 
 "thy currish spirit 
 
 Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter, 
 Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet, 
 And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam, 
 Infus'd itself in thee ; for thy desires 
 Are wolfish, 'bloody, starv'd, and ravenous."
 
 158 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 That such cases usually came under the juris- 
 diction of monasteries and so-called spiritualities 
 and were tried by their peculiarly organized 
 tribunals, will not seem strange, when we re- 
 member that these religious establishments were 
 great landed proprietors and at one time owned 
 nearly one-third of all real estate in France. 
 The frequency with which pigs were brought to 
 trial and adjudged to death, was owing, in a 
 great measure, to the freedom with which they 
 were permitted to run about the streets and to 
 their immense number. The fact that they were 
 under the special protection of St. Anthony of 
 Padua conferred upon them a certain immunity, 
 so that they became a serious nuisance, not only 
 endangering the lives of children, but also 
 generating and disseminating diseases. It is 
 recorded that in 1131, as the Crown Prince 
 Philippe, son of Louis the Gross, was riding 
 through one of the principal streets of Paris, 
 a boar, belonging to an abbot, ran violently 
 between the legs of his horse, so that the prince 
 fell to the ground and was killed. In some cities, 
 like Grenoble in the sixteenth century, the 
 authorities treated them very much as we do 
 mad dogs, empowering the carnifex to seize and 
 slay them whenever found at large. On Nov. 
 20, 1664, tne municipality of Naples passed an 
 ordinance that the pigs, which frequented the 
 streets and piazzas to the detriment and danger 
 of the inhabitants, should be removed from the 
 city to a wood or other uninhabited place or be
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals i 59 
 
 slaughtered within twelve days on pain of the 
 penalties already prescribed and threatened, 
 probably in the order issued on Nov. 3, of the 
 same year. It would seem, however, that these 
 ordinances did not produce the desired effect, or 
 soon fell into abeyance, since another was pro- 
 mulgated four years later, on Nov. 29, 1668, 
 expelling the pigs from the city and calling at- 
 tention to the fact that they corrupted the atmo- 
 sphere and thus imperiled the public health. 
 Sanitary considerations and salutary measures 
 of this kind were by no means common in the 
 Middle Ages, but were a gradual outgrowth of 
 the spirit of the Renaissance. It was with the 
 revival of letters that men began to love clean- 
 liness and to appreciate its hygienic value as 
 well as its aesthetic beauty. Little heed was 
 paid to such things in the " good old times " of 
 earlier date, when the test of holiness was the 
 number of years a person went unwashed, and 
 the growth of the soul in sanctity was estimated 
 by the thickness of the layers of filth on the 
 body, as the age of the earth is determined by 
 the strata which compose its crust. 
 
 The freedom of the city almost universally 
 enjoyed by mediaeval swine is still maintained 
 by their descendants in many towns of Southern 
 Italy and Sicily, where they ramble at will 
 through the streets or assemble in council before 
 the palace of the prefect (cf. D'Addosio, Bestie 
 Delinquent, pp. 23-5).
 
 160 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 In the latter half of the sixteenth century the 
 tribunals began to take preventive measures 
 against the public nuisance by holding the in- 
 habitants responsible for the injuries done to 
 individuals by swine running at large and by 
 threatening with corporal as well as pecuniary 
 punishment all persons who left " such beasts 
 without a good and sure guard." Thus it is 
 recorded that on the 27th of March, 1567, " a 
 sow with a black snout," " for the cruelty and 
 ferocity " shown in murdering a little child 
 four months old, having " eaten and devoured 
 the head, the left hand and the part above 
 the right breast of the said infant," was con- 
 demned to be " exterminated to death, and to 
 this end to be hanged by the executioner of high 
 justice on a tree within the metes and bounds 
 of the said judicature on the highway from Saint- 
 Firmin to Senlis." The court of the judicatory 
 of Senlis, which pronounced this sentence on 
 complaint of the procurator of the seigniory of 
 Saint-Nicolas, also forbade all the inhabitants 
 and subjects of the said seignioralty to permit the 
 like beasts to go unguarded on pain of an arbi- 
 trary fine and of corporal chastisement in default 
 of payment. (Vide Appendix P.) 
 
 But although pigs appear to have been the 
 principal culprits, especially as regard infanti- 
 cide, other quadrupeds were frequently called 
 to answer for similar crimes. Thus, in 1314, a 
 bull belonging to a farmer in the village of
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 161 
 
 Moisy, escaped into the highway, where it at- 
 tacked a man and injured him so severely that 
 he died a few hours afterwards. The ferocious 
 animal was seized and imprisoned by the officers 
 of Charles, Count of Valois, and after being tried 
 and convicted was sentenced to be hanged. This 
 judgment of the court was confirmed by the 
 Parliament of Paris and the execution took place 
 at Moisy-le-Temple on the common gallows. 
 An appeal based upon the incompetency of the 
 court was then made by the Procurator of the 
 Order of the Hospital of the Ville de Moisy to 
 the Parliament of La Chandeleur, which decided 
 that the bull had met with its deserts and been 
 justly put to death, but that the Count of Valois 
 had no jurisdiction on the territory of Moisy, 
 and his officials no power to institute proceed- 
 ings in this case. The sentence was right in 
 equity, but judicially and technically wrong, and 
 could not therefore serve as a precedent. 
 
 There is also extant an order issued by the 
 magistracy of Gisors in 1405, commanding pay- 
 ment to be made to the carpenter who had 
 erected the scaffold on which an ox had been 
 executed " for its demerits." Again on the 
 i6th of May, 1499, the judicial authorities of 
 the Cistercian Abbey of Beaupre near Beauvais 
 condemned a red bull to be "executed until 
 death inclusively," for having "killed with 
 furiosity a lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age, 
 named Lucas Dupont," who was employed in 
 tending the horned cattle of the farmer Jean 
 ii
 
 1 62 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Boullet. (Vide Appendix Q.) In 1389, the 
 Carthusians of Dijon caused a horse to be con- 
 demned to death for homicide; and as late as 
 1697 a mare was burned by the decision and 
 decree of the Parliament of Aix, which, it must 
 be remembered, was not a legislative body, but 
 a supreme court of judicature, thus differing in 
 its functions from the States General, the only 
 law-making and representative assembly in 
 France, that may be said to have corresponded 
 in the slightest degree to the modern conception 
 of a parliament. 
 
 In 1474, the magistrates of Bale sentenced a 
 cock to be burned at the stake " for the heinous 
 and unnatural crime of laying an egg." The 
 auto da fe was held on a height near the city 
 called the Kohlenberg, with as great solemnity 
 as would have been observed in consigning a 
 heretic to the flames, and was witnessed by an 
 immense crowd of townsmen and peasants. 
 The statement made by Gross in his Kurze 
 Easier Chronik, that the executioner on cutting 
 open the cock found three more eggs in him, is 
 of course absurd ; we have to do in this case 
 not with a freak of nature, but with the freak of 
 an excited imagination tainted with superstition. 
 Other instances of this kind have been recorded, 
 one in the Swiss Prattigau as late as 1730, al- 
 though in many cases the execution of the galli- 
 naceous malefactor was more summary and less 
 ceremonious than at Bale. 
 
 The oeuf coquatri was supposed to be the pro-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 163 
 
 duct of a very old cock and to furnish the most 
 active ingredient of witch ointment. When 
 hatched by a serpent or a toad, or by the heat 
 of the sun it brought forth a cockatrice or basilisk, 
 which would hide in the roof of the house and 
 with its baneful breath and " death-darting eye " 
 destroy all the inmates. Many naturalists be- 
 lieved this fable as late as the eighteenth century, 
 and in 1710 the French savant Lapeyronie 
 deemed this absurd notion worthy of serious 
 refutation, and read a paper, entitled " Obser- 
 vation sur les petits oeufs de poule sans jaune, 
 que Ton appelle vulgairement oeufs de Coq," 
 before the Academy of Sciences in order to prove 
 that cocks never lay and that the small and yolk- 
 less eggs attributed to them owe their peculiar 
 shape and condition to a disease of the hen re- 
 sulting in a hydropic malformation of the ovi- 
 duct. A farmer brought him several specimens 
 of this sort, somewhat larger than a pigeon's 
 egg, and assured him that they had been laid 
 by a cock in his own barnyard. On opening 
 one of them, M. Lapeyronie was surprised to 
 find only a very slight trace of the yolk resem- 
 bling " a small serpent coiled." He now began 
 to suspect that the cock might be an hermaphro- 
 dite, but on killing and dissecting it discovered 
 nothing in support of this theory, the internal 
 organs being all perfectly healthy and normal. 
 But although the unfortunate chanticleer had 
 fallen a victim to the scientific investigation of
 
 164 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 a popular delusion, the eggs in question con- 
 tinued to be produced, until the farmer by care- 
 fully watching the fowls detected the hen that 
 laid them. The dissection showed that the 
 pressure of a bladder of serous fluid against the 
 oviduct had so contracted it, that the egg in 
 passing had the yolk squeezed out of it, leaving 
 merely a yellowish discoloration that looked like 
 a worm. Another peculiarity of this hen was 
 that she crowed like "a hoarse cock" (un coq 
 enroue), only more violently; a phenomenon 
 also a source of terror to the superstitious, but 
 ascribed by M. Lapeyronie to the same morbid 
 state of the oviduct and the consequent pain 
 caused by the passage of the egg (Memoires de 
 VAcademie de Sciences. Paris, 1710, pp. 553- 
 60.) 
 
 A Greek physiologus of the twelfth century, 
 written in verse, calls the animal hatched from 
 the egg of an old cock eirreiyapia, a name which 
 would imply some sort of winged creature. It 
 was "sighted like the basilisk," and endowed 
 also in other respects with the same fatal qualities. 
 
 In the case of a valuable animal, such as an 
 ox or a horse, the severity of retaliatory justice 
 was often tempered by economical considera- 
 tions and the culprit confiscated, but not capi- 
 tally punished. Thus as early as the twelfth 
 century it is expressly stated that "it is the law 
 and custom in Burgundy that if an ox or a 
 horse commit one or several homicides, it shall
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 165 
 
 not be condemned to death, but shall be taken 
 by the Seignior within whose jurisdiction the 
 deed was perpetrated or by hi's servitors and be 
 confiscated to him and shall be sold and appro- 
 priated to the profit of the said Seignior; but 
 if other beasts or Jews do it, they shall be 
 hanged by the hind feet " (Coustumes et Stilles 
 de Bourgoigne, 197 in Giraud : Essai sur 
 I'Histoire du Droit Francais, II. p. 302; quoted 
 by Amira). It was a cruel irony of the law 
 that conferred upon pigs and Jews a perfect 
 equality of rights by sending them both to the 
 scaffold. 
 
 Animals were put on a par with old crones in 
 bearing their full share of persecution during 
 the witchcraft delusion. Pigs suffered most in 
 this respect, since they were assumed to be 
 peculiarly attractive to devils, and therefore par- 
 ticularly liable to diabolical possession, as is 
 evident from the legion that went out of the 
 lunatic and were permitted, at their own request, 
 to enter into the Gadarene herd of swine. But 
 Beelzebub did not disdain to become incarnate 
 in all sorts of creatures, such as cats, dogs of 
 high and low degree, wolves, night-birds and 
 indeed in any beast, especially if it chanced to 
 be black. Goats, it is well known, were not a 
 too stinking habitation for him, and even to 
 dwell in skunks he did not despise. The per- 
 petual smell of burning sulphur in his subter- 
 ranean abode may render him proof against any
 
 1 66 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 less suffocating form of stench. The Bible 
 represents Satan as going about as a roaring 
 lion ; and according to the highest ecclesiastical 
 authorities he has appeared visibly as a raven, 
 a porcupine, a toad and a gnat. Indeed, there 
 is hardly a living creature in which he has not 
 deigned to disport himself from a blue-bottle 
 to a bishop, to say nothing of his " appearing 
 invisibly at times " (aliquando invisibiliter ap- 
 parens), if we may believe what the learned 
 polyhistor Tritheim tells of his apparitions. As 
 all animals were considered embodiments of 
 devils, it was perfectly logical and consistent 
 that the Prince of Darkness should reveal him- 
 self to mortal ken as a mongrel epitome of many 
 beasts snake, cat, dog, pig, ape, buck and 
 horse each contributing some characteristic part 
 to his incarnation. 
 
 It was during the latter half of the seventeenth 
 century, when, as we have seen, criminal pro- 
 secutions of animals were still quite frequent 
 and the penalties inflicted extremely cruel, that 
 Racine caricatured them in Les Plaideurs, where 
 a dog is tried for stealing and eating a capon. 
 Dandin solemnly takes his seat as judge, and 
 declares his determination to " close his eyes 
 to bribes and his ears to brigue." Petit Jean 
 prosecutes and L'Intime appears for the defence. 
 Both address the court in florid and high-flown 
 rhetoric and display rare erudition in quoting 
 Aristotle, Pausanias and other ancient as well
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 167 
 
 as modern authorities. The accused is con- 
 demned to the galleys. Thereupon the counsel 
 for the defendant brings in a litter of puppies, 
 pauvres enfants qu'on veut rendre orphelins, 
 and appeals to the compassion and implores the 
 clemency of the judge. Dandin's feelings are 
 touched, for he, too, is a father; as a public 
 officer, also, he is moved by the economical con- 
 sideration of the expense to the state of keeping 
 the offspring of the culprit in a foundling hos- 
 pital, in case they should be deprived of paternal 
 support. To the contemporaries of Racine the 
 representation of a scene like this had a signifi- 
 cance, which we fail to appreciate. It strikes us 
 as simply farcical and not very funny ; to them 
 it was a mirror reflecting a characteristic feature 
 of the time and ridiculing a grave judicial abuse, 
 as Cervantes, a century earlier, burlesqued the 
 institution of chivalry in the adventures of Don 
 Quixote. (See Appendix R.) 
 
 Lex ialionis is the oldest kind of law and the 
 most deeply rooted in human nature. To the 
 primitive man and the savage, tit for tat is an 
 ethical axiom, which it would be thought im- 
 moral as well as cowardly not to put into prac- 
 tice. No principle is held more firmly or acted 
 upon more universally than that of literal and 
 exact retributions in man's dealings with his 
 fellows the iron rule of doing unto others the 
 wrongs which others have done unto you. 
 Hebrew legislation demanded " life for life, eye 
 for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for
 
 1 68 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, 
 stripe for stripe." An old Anglo-Saxon law 
 made this retaliatory principle of membrum pro 
 membro the penalty of all crimes of personal 
 violence, including rape; even a lascivious eye 
 was to be plucked out, in accordance with the 
 doctrine that " whosoever looketh on a woman 
 to lust after her hath committed adultery with 
 her already in his heart." [" Corruptor puniatur 
 in eo in quo deliquat : oculos igitur amittat, 
 propter aspectum decoris, quo virginem con- 
 cupivit; amittat et testiculos, qui calorem stupri 
 induxerunt." Cf. Bracton, 147^; Reeves, 
 I. 481.] This was believed to be God's method 
 of punishment, smiting with disease or miracul- 
 ously destroying the bodily organs, which were 
 the instruments of sin. Thus Stengelius (De 
 Judiciis Divinis, II. 26, 27) records how a 
 thunderbolt was hurled by the divine hand in 
 such a manner as to castrate a lascivious priest : 
 impurus et saltator sacerdos fulmine castratus. 
 The same sort of retributive justice was recog- 
 nized by the Institutes of Manu, which punished 
 a thief by the amputation or mutilation of his 
 fingers. 
 
 In the covenant with Noah it was declared 
 that human blood should be required not only 
 "at the hand of man," but also "at the hand 
 of every beast;" and it was subsequently 
 enacted, in accordance with this fundamental 
 principle, that " if an ox gore a man or a 
 woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 169 
 
 stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten." To 
 eat a creature which had become the peer of 
 man in blood-guiltiness and in judicial punish- 
 ment, would savour of anthropophagy. This 
 decision of Jewish law-givers as to the use of 
 the flesh of otherwise edible animals condemned 
 to death for crime has nearly always been 
 followed. Thus when, in 1553, several swine 
 were executed for child-murder at Frankfort on 
 the Main, their carcasses, although doubtless as 
 good pork as could be found in the shambles, 
 were thrown into the river. Usually, however, 
 they were buried under the gallows or in what- 
 ever spot was set apart for interring the dead 
 bodies of human criminals. At Ghent, how- 
 ever, in 1578, after judicial sentence of death 
 had been pronounced on a cow, she was 
 slaughtered and her flesh sold as butcher's meat, 
 half of the proceeds of the sale being given as 
 compensation to the injured party and the other 
 half to the city treasury for distribution among 
 the poor ; but her head was struck off and stuck 
 on a stake near the gallows, to indicate that she 
 had been capitally punished. The thrifty Flem- 
 ings did not permit the moral depravity to taint 
 the material substance of the bovine culprit and 
 impair the excellence of the beef. 
 
 On the other hand, the Law Faculty of the 
 University of Leipsic decided that a cow, which 
 had pushed a woman and thereby caused her 
 death at Machern in Saxony, July 20, 1621,
 
 170 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 should be taken to a secluded and barren place 
 and there killed and buried " unflayed." In 
 this case the flesh of the homicidal animal was 
 not to be eaten nor the hide converted into 
 leather. (Vide Appendix S.) 
 
 In this connection it may be interesting to 
 mention a decision of the Ecclesiastical Court 
 (geistlicher Convent) of Berne, given in 1666 
 and recorded in Tiirler's Strafrechtliche Gut- 
 achten des geistlichen Konvents der Stadt Bern 
 (Zeitschrift fur schweis. Strafrecht, Bd. III., 
 Heft 5. Quoted by Tobler). An insane man 
 was tried for murder and the prosecutor seems 
 to have urged that the lack of moral responsi- 
 bility did not suffice to relieve the accused of 
 legal responsibility and to free him from punish- 
 ment, citing as pertinent to the case the Mosaic 
 law, which inflicted the death penalty on an ox 
 for the like offence. On this point the court 
 replied: "In the first place, that specifically 
 Jewish law is not binding upon other govern- 
 ments, and is not observed by them either as 
 regards oxen or horses. Again, even if the 
 Jewish law should be really applicable to all men, 
 it could not be appealed to in the present case, 
 since it is not permissible to draw an inference 
 a bove ad hominem. Inasmuch as no law is 
 given to the ox, it cannot violate any, in other 
 words, cannot sin and therefore cannot be 
 punished. On the other hand, death is a severe 
 penalty for man. Nevertheless if God com-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 171 
 
 manded that the ' goring ox ' should be killed, 
 this was done in order to excite aversion to the 
 deed, to prevent the animal from injuring others, 
 and in this manner to punish the owner of the 
 beast. This fact, however, proves nothing 
 touching the case now before us; for, although 
 God enacted a law for the ox, he did not enact 
 any for the insane man, and the distinction be- 
 tween the goring ox and the maniac must be 
 observed. An ox is created for man's sake, and 
 can therefore be killed for his sake; and in doing 
 this there is no question of right or wrong as 
 regards the ox ; on the other hand, it is not 
 permissible to kill a man, unless he has deserved 
 death as a punishment." The remarkable points 
 in this decision are, first, the abrogation of a 
 biblical enactment by an ecclesiastical court of 
 the seventeenth century, and, secondly, the dis- 
 cussion of a criminal act from a psychiatrical 
 point of view and the admission of extenuating 
 and exculpating circumstances derived from this 
 source. 
 
 The Koran holds every beast and fowl ac- 
 countable for injuries done to each other, but 
 reserves their punishment for the life to come. 
 Among the Kukis, if a man falls from a tree and 
 is killed, it is the sacred duty of the next of kin 
 to fell the tree, and cut it up and scatter the 
 chips abroad. The spirit of the tree was sup- 
 posed to have caused the mishap, and the blood 
 of the slain was not thought to be thoroughly 
 avenged until the offending object had been
 
 172 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 effaced from the earth. A survival of this notion 
 was the custom of burning heretics and flinging 
 their ashes to the four winds or casting them 
 upon rivers running into the sea. The laws of 
 Drakon and Erechtheus required weapons and 
 all other objects, by which a person had lost 
 his life, to be publicly condemned and thrown 
 beyond the Athenian boundaries. This sentence 
 of banishment, then regarded as one of the 
 severest that could be inflicted, was pronounced 
 upon a sword, which had killed a priest, the 
 wielder of the same being unknown ; and also 
 upon a bust of the elegiac poet Theognis, which 
 had fallen on a man and caused his death. Even 
 in cases which, one would think, might be re- 
 garded as justifiable homicide in self-defence, no 
 such ground of exculpation seems to have been 
 admitted. Thus the statue erected by the Athen- 
 ians in honour of the famous athlete, Nikon of 
 Thasos, was assailed by his envious foes and 
 pushed from its pedestal. In falling it crushed 
 one of its assailants, and was therefore brought 
 before the proper tribunal and sentenced to be 
 cast into the sea. Judicial proceedings of this 
 kind were called a^fvx^v 81*01 (prosecutions of 
 lifeless things) and were conducted before the 
 Athenian law-court known as the Prytaneion ; 
 they are alluded to by ^Eschines, Pausanias, 
 Demosthenes, and other writers, and briefly de- 
 scribed in the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux and 
 the Lexicon Decent Oratorum Graecorum of 
 Valerius Harpokration.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 173 
 
 Strictly speaking, the term atyvxov should be 
 applied only to an inanimate object and not to 
 the brute, which was more correctly called a$u>vov 
 (dumb) ; but this distinction was not always ob- 
 served either in common parlance or in legal 
 phraseology. The law on this point as formu- 
 lated and expounded by Plato (De Leg., IX. 12) 
 was as follows: " If a draught animal or any 
 other beast kill a person, unless it be in a com- 
 bat authorized and instituted by the state, the 
 kinsmen of the slain shall prosecute the said 
 homicide for murder, and the overseers of the 
 public lands (aypov6^oi\ as many as may be com- 
 missioned by the said kinsmen, shall adjudicate 
 upon the case and send the offender beyond the 
 boundaries of the country (eo/nCeii>, exterminate 
 in the literal and original sense of the term). 
 If a lifeless thing shall deprive a person of life, 
 provided it may not be a thunderbolt (Ktpawos) 
 or other missile (/Se'Aos) hurled by a god, but an 
 object which the said person may have run 
 against or by which he may have been struck 
 and slain, then the kinsman immediate to the 
 deceased shall appoint the nearest neighbour 
 as judge in order to purify himself as well as 
 his next of kin from blood-guiltiness, but the 
 culprit (TO o^Aoy) shall be put beyond the 
 boundaries, in the same manner as if it were 
 an animal." In the same section it is enacted 
 that if a person be found dead and the mur- 
 derer be unknown, then proclamation shall be 
 made by a herald on the market-place forbid-
 
 174 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 ding the murderer to enter any sanctuary or the 
 land of the slain, and declaring that, if dis- 
 covered, he shall be put to death and his body 
 be thrown unburied beyond the boundaries of the 
 country of the person killed. The object of these 
 measures was to appease the Erinnys or avenging 
 spirit of the deceased, and to avert the calamities 
 which would otherwise be brought upon the land, 
 in accordance with the strict law of retribution 
 demanding blood for blood, no matter whether 
 it may have been shed w-ilfully or accidentally. 
 [Cf. ^Eschylus, C/io., 395, where this law (ro'//os) 
 is clearly and strongly affirmed.] The same 
 superstitious feeling leads the hunters of many 
 savage tribes to beg pardon of bears and other 
 wild animals for killing them and to purify 
 themselves by religious rites from the taint in- 
 curred by such an act, the ^iaa-y^a of murder, 
 as the Greeks called it. 
 
 Quite recently in China fifteen wooden idols 
 were tried and condemned to decapitation for 
 having caused the death of a man of high 
 military rank. On complaint of the family of 
 the deceased the viceroy residing at Fouchow 
 ordered the culprits to be taken out of the temple 
 and brought before the criminal court of that 
 city, which after due process of law sentenced 
 them to have their heads severed from their 
 bodies and then to be thrown into a pond. The 
 execution is reported to have taken place in the 
 presence of a large concourse of approving spec- 
 tators and " amid the loud execrations of the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 175 
 
 masses," who seem in their excitement to have 
 " lost their heads " as well as the hapless deities. 
 
 When the Russian prince Dimitri, the son of 
 Ivan II., was assassinated on May 15, 1591, at 
 Uglich, his place of exile, the great bell of that 
 town rang the signal of insurrection. For this 
 serious political offence the bell was sentenced 
 to perpetual banishment in Siberia, and con- 
 veyed with other exiles to Tobolsk. After a 
 long period of solitary confinement it was par- 
 tially purged of its iniquity by conjuration and 
 re-consecration and suspended in the tower of a 
 church in the Siberian capital; but not until 1892 
 was it fully pardoned and restored to its original 
 place in Uglich. 'A like sentence was imposed 
 by a Russian tribunal on a butting ram in the 
 latter half of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Mathias Abele von Lilienberg, in his Meta- 
 morphosis Telae Judiciariae, of which the eighth 
 edition was published at Nuremberg in 1712, 
 states that a drummer's dog in an Austrian 
 garrison town bit a member of the municipal 
 council in the right leg. The drummer was sued 
 for damages, but refused to be responsible for the 
 snappish cur and delivered it over to the arm of 
 justice. Thereupon he was released, and the 
 dog sentenced to one year's incarceration in the 
 Narrenkotterlein, a sort of pillory or iron cage 
 standing on the market-place, in w-hich blas- 
 phemers, evil-livers, rowdies and other peace- 
 breakers were commonly confined. [The Nar- 
 renkotterlein, Narrenkoderl or Kotter formerly
 
 176 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 on the chief public squares in Vienna are de- 
 scribed as " Menschenkafige mit Cittern von 
 Eisen und Holz, bestimmt das darin versperrte 
 Individuum dem Spotte des Pobels preiszu- 
 geben (zu narren)." Schlager : Wiener Skizzcn 
 aus dem Mittelalter, II. 245.] Mornacius also 
 relates that several mad dogs, which attacked 
 and tore in pieces a Franciscan novice in 1610, 
 were " by sentence and decree of the court put 
 to death." It is surely reasonable enough that 
 mad dogs should be killed ; the remarkable 
 feature of the case is that they should be form- 
 ally tried and convicted as murderers by a legal 
 tribunal, and that no account should have been 
 taken of their rabies as an extenuating circum- 
 stance or ground of acquittal. In such a case 
 the plea of insanity would certainly seem to 
 be naturally suggested and perfectly valid. 
 
 On the other hand, it is expressly declared in 
 the Avesta that a mad dog shall not be per- 
 mitted to plead insanity in exculpation of itself, 
 but shall be " punished with the punishment of 
 a conscious and premeditated offence (baodho- 
 varsta), i. e. by progressive mutilation, corre- 
 sponding to the number of persons or beasts it 
 has bitten, beginning with the loss of its ears, 
 extending to the crippling of its feet and ending 
 with the amputation of its tail. This cruel and 
 absurd enactment is wholly inconsistent with the 
 kindly spirit shown in the Avesta towards all 
 animals recognized as the creatures of Ahura- 
 mazda, and especially with the many measures
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 177 
 
 taken by the I ndo- Aryans as a pastoral people 
 for the protection of the dog. Indeed, a para- 
 graph immediately following in the same chapter 
 commands the Mazdayasnians to treat such a 
 rabid dog humanely, and to " wait upon him 
 with medicaments and to try to heal him, just 
 as they would care for a righteous man." On 
 this important point Avestan legislation is so 
 inconsistent and self-contradictory that one may 
 justly suspect the harsh enactments to be later 
 interpolations. 
 
 A curious example of imputed crime and its 
 penal consequences is seen in the Roman custom 
 of celebrating the anniversary of the preserva- 
 tion of the Capitol from the night-attack of the 
 Gauls, not only by paying honour to the de- 
 scendants of the sacred geese, whose cries gave 
 warning of the enemy's approach, adorning them 
 with jewels and carrying them about in litters, 
 but also by crucifying a dog, as a punishment for 
 the want of vigilance shown by its progenitors on 
 that occasion. This imputation of merit and de- 
 merit was really no more absurd than to visit the 
 sins of the fathers on the children, as prescribed 
 by Jewish and other ancient lawgivers, or to 
 decree corruption of blood in persons attainted of 
 treason, as is still the practice of modern states, 
 or any other theory of inherited guilt or scheme 
 of vicarious atonement, that sets the sin of the 
 federal head of the race to the account of his 
 remotest posterity and relieves them from its 
 penalties only through the suffering and death 
 12
 
 178 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 of a- wholly innocent person. They are all appli- 
 cations of the barbarous principle, which, in 
 primitive society, with its gross conceptions of 
 justice, made the entire tribe responsible for the 
 conduct of each of its members. The vendetta, 
 which continues to be the unwritten but inviol- 
 able code of many semi-civilized communities, 
 is based upon the same conception of consan- 
 guineous solidarity for the perpetration and 
 avenging of crime. 
 
 According to an old Anglo-Saxon law, 
 abolished by King Canute, in case stolen pro- 
 perty was found in the house of a thief, his wife 
 and family, even to the infant in the cradle, 
 though it had never taken food (peak hit nafre 
 metes ne dbite), were punished as partakers of 
 his guilt. The Schwabenspiegel, the oldest 
 digest of South German law, treated as acces- 
 saries all the domestic animals found in a house, 
 in which a crime of violence had been com- 
 mitted, and punished them with death. [" Man 
 soil allez daz totden daz in den huze ist ge- 
 vonden : leuten und vie, ros und rinder, hunde 
 und katzen, ganzen und hundre." 290.] 
 
 Cicero approved of such penalties for political 
 crimes as " severe but wise enactments, since 
 the father is thereby bound to the interests of 
 the state by the strongest of ties, namely, love 
 for his children." Roman law under the empire 
 punished treason with death and then added : 
 !" As to the sons of traitors, they ought to suffer 
 the same penalty as their parents, since it is
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 179 
 
 highly probable that they will sometime be 
 guilty of the same crime themselves; never- 
 theless, as a special act of clemency, we grant 
 them their lives, but, at the same time, declare 
 them to be incapable of inheriting anything from 
 father or mother or of receiving any gift or 
 bequest in consequence of any devise or testa- 
 ment of kinsmen or friends. Branded with 
 hereditary infamy and excluded from all hope of 
 honour or of property, may they suffer the 
 torture of disgrace and poverty until they shall 
 look upon life as a curse and long for death as 
 a kind release." This atrocious edict of the 
 emperors Arcadius and Honorius has its counter- 
 part in the still more radical code of Pachacutez, 
 the Justinian of the ancient Peruvians, which 
 punished adultery with the wife of an Inca by 
 putting to death not only the adulteress and her 
 seducer, but also the children, slaves and kindred 
 of the culprits, as well as all the inhabitants of 
 the city in which the crime was committed, 
 while the city itself was to be razed and the site 
 covered with stones. 
 
 The principle enunciated by Cicero has also 
 been accepted by modern legislators as applic- 
 able to high treason. Thus, when Tschech, the 
 burgomaster of Storkow, attempted to take the 
 life of Frederic William of Prussia, July 26, 
 1844, he was tried and executed Dec. 14 of 
 the same year. On the day after his execution 
 his only daughter, Elizabeth, was arrested, and 
 to her inquiry by what right she had been
 
 180 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 deprived of her freedom, the authorities replied 
 that, " according to Prussian law the children 
 of a person convicted of high treason and all the 
 members of his family, especially if they seemed 
 to be dangerous and to share the opinions of 
 their father, can be imprisoned for life or 
 banished from the country." The young lady 
 was then exiled to Westphalia, and there placed 
 in the custody of an extremely austere parson, 
 until she finally escaped to France, and after- 
 wards to Switzerland, where she spent the rest 
 of her days. 
 
 When the prefects Tatian and Proculus fell 
 into disgrace, Lycia, their native land, was 
 deprived of the autonomy it had hitherto enjoyed 
 as a Roman province, and its inhabitants were 
 disfranchised and declared incapable of holding 
 any office under the empire. So, too, when 
 Joshua discovered some of the spoils of Jericho 
 hidden in the tent of Achan, not only the thief 
 himself, but also " his sons, and his daughters, 
 and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and 
 his tent, and all that he had," were brought into 
 the valley of Achor, and there stoned with stones 
 and burned with fire. About this time, how- 
 ever, such holocausts of justice were suppressed 
 among the Jews, and a law enacted that hence- 
 forth " the fathers shall not be put to death for 
 the children, neither shall the children be put 
 to death for the fathers, every man shall be put 
 to death for his own sin;" -or, as Jeremiah ex- 
 presses it figuratively, the children's teeth were
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 181 
 
 to be no longer set on edge by the sour grapes 
 which their fathers had eaten. Yet the per- 
 sistency of time-honoured custom and its power 
 of overriding new statutes are seen in the fact 
 that, several centuries later, at the request of the 
 Gibeonites, whom it had become desirable to 
 conciliate, David did not scruple to deliver up 
 to them seven of Saul's sons to be hanged for 
 the evil which their father had wrought in slay- 
 ing these foes of Israel. It would have been a 
 parallel case if Bismarck had sought to win the 
 friendship and favour of the French by giving 
 into their hands the descendants of Bliicher to 
 be guillotined on the Place de la Concorde, or, 
 after having made a political pilgrimage to 
 Canossa, should surrender the children of Dr. 
 Falk to be racked and burned at the stake by the 
 ultramontanes. 
 
 According to the current orthodox theology, 
 treason against God, committed by our common 
 progenitor, worked " corruption of blood " in 
 the whole human race, all the children of men 
 being attainted with guilt in consequence of the 
 act of their first parent. This crude and brutal 
 conception of justice is the survival of a primi- 
 tive and barbarous state of society, and it is 
 curious to observe how the most highly civilized 
 peoples, who have outgrown this notion and set 
 it aside in the secular relations of man to man, 
 still cling to it as something sacred and sublime 
 in the spiritual relations of man to the deity. 
 Only the all-wise and all-powerful sovereign of
 
 1 82 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 the universe is supposed to continue to 
 administer law and justice on principles which 
 common-sense and the enlightened opinion 
 of mankind have long since abrogated and 
 banished from earthly legislation. Thus the 
 divine government, instead of keeping pace with 
 the progress of human institutions, still cor- 
 responds to the ideals of right and retribution 
 entertained by savage tribes and the lowest types 
 of mankind. 
 
 The horrible mutilations to which criminals 
 were formerly subjected, originated in an en- 
 deavour to administer strictly even-handed 
 justice. What could be fairer or more fit than 
 to punish perjury by cutting off the two fingers 
 which the perjurer had held up in taking the 
 violated oath ? It was a popular belief that the 
 fingers of an undetected perjurer would grow 
 out of the grave after death, seeking retributive 
 amputation, as a plant seeks the light, and that 
 his ghost would never rest until this penalty had 
 been inflicted. (See Heinrich Roch : Schles. 
 Ckron., p. 267, where a case of this kind is 
 recorded.) The Carolina (constitutio criminalis 
 Carolina), although in many respects an advance 
 on mediaeval penal legislation, doomed incendi- 
 aries to be burned alive ; and an old law, cited 
 by Dopier (Theat. Poen., II. 271), condemned a 
 man who had dug up and removed a boundary 
 stone to be buried in the earth up to his neck 
 and to have his head plowed off with a new plow, 
 thus symbolizing in his own person the grave
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 183 
 
 offence which he had committed. Ivan Basilo- 
 vitch, a Muscovite prince, ordered that an ambas- 
 sador, who did not uncover in his presence, 
 should have his hat nailed to his head ; and it is 
 a feeble survival of the same idea of proper 
 punishment that makes the American farmer 
 nail the dead hawk to his barn-door, just as in 
 former times it was customary to crucify high- 
 way robbers at cross-roads. 
 
 According to an old Roman law ascribed to 
 Numa Pompilius, the oxen which plowed up 
 a boundary stone, as well as their driver, were 
 sacrificed to Jupiter Terminus. In the early 
 development of agriculture, and the transition 
 from communal to personal property in land, this 
 severe enactment was deemed necessary to the 
 protection of the "sacra saxa," by which the 
 boundary lines of the fields were defined. Only 
 by making the violation of enclosed ground a 
 sacrilege was it possible to prevent encroach- 
 ments upon it, so strong was the lingering preju- 
 dice against individual possessions of this kind 
 running in the blood of a people descended from 
 nomadic tribes of herdsmen, who regarded 
 sedentary communities engaged in tilling the 
 soil as their direst foes. The lawgiver knew 
 very well that the oxen were involuntary agents, 
 and that the plowman alone was culpable; but 
 when a religious atonement is to be made and an 
 angry god appeased, moral distinctions deter- 
 mining degrees of responsibility are uniformly 
 ignored, and the innocent are doomed to suffer
 
 184 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 with the guilty. The oxen were tainted by the 
 performance of an act, in which the exercise of 
 their will was not involved, and must there- 
 fore be consigned to the offended deity. The 
 same is true of the plowman, who did not escape 
 immolation even when the motio termini or 
 displacement of the boundary stone occurred 
 unintentionally. 
 
 That the feeling, which found expression in 
 such enactments and usages and survives in 
 schemes of expiation and vicarious sacrifice, lies 
 scarcely skin-deep under the polished surface of 
 our civilization, is evident from the force and 
 suddenness with which it breaks out under 
 strong excitement, as when Cincinnati rioters 
 burn the court-house because they suspect the 
 judges of venality and are dissatisfied with the 
 verdicts of the juries. The primitive man and 
 the savage, like the low and ignorant masses of 
 civilized communities, do not take into con- 
 sideration whether the objects from which they 
 suffer injury are intelligent agents or not, but 
 wreak their vengeance on stocks and stones and 
 brutes, obeying only the rude instinct of 
 revenge. The power of restraining these abo- 
 riginal propensities, and of nicely analyzing 
 actions and studying mental conditions in order 
 to ascertain degrees of moral responsibility, 
 presupposes a high degree of mental develop- 
 ment and refinement and great acuteness of 
 psychological perception, and is, in fact, only a 
 recent acquisition of a small minority of the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 185 
 
 human race. The vast bulk of mankind will 
 have to pass through a long process of intel- 
 lectual evolution, and rise far above their present 
 place in the ascending scale of culture before 
 they attain it. 
 
 For this reason Lombroso would abolish trial 
 by jury, which seems to him not a sign of pro- 
 gress towards better judicatory methods, but a 
 clumsy survival of primitive justice as adminis- 
 tered by barbarous tribes and even gregarious 
 animals. It makes the administration of justice 
 dependent upon popular prejudice and passion, 
 and finds its most violent expression or explo- 
 sion in lynch law, which is only trial by a jury 
 of the whole community gone mad. It would 
 certainly be a dismal farce to apply to the 
 criminal classes the principle that every man 
 must be judged by his peers. In the cantonal 
 courts of Switzerland the verdict of the jury is 
 uniformly in favour of the native against the 
 foreigner, no matter what the merits of the case 
 may be ; and this outrageous perversion of right 
 and equity is called patriotism, a term which 
 conveniently sums up and euphemizes the 
 general sentiment of Helvetian innkeepers and 
 tradesmen that " the stranger within their 
 gates " is their legitimate spoil, and has no other 
 raison d'etre. In Italy, especially in Naples 
 and Sicily, a thief may be sometimes con- 
 demned, but a murderer is almost invariably 
 acquitted by the jury, whose decision expresses 
 the corrupted moral sense of a people accus-
 
 1 86 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 tomed to admire the bandit as a hero and 
 to consider brigandage a highly honourable 
 profession. 
 
 The childish disposition to punish irrational 
 creatures and inanimate objects, which is common 
 to the infancy of individuals and of races, has 
 left a distinct trace of itself in that peculiar in- 
 stitution of English law known as deodand, and 
 derived partly from Jewish and partly from old 
 German usages and traditions. " If a horse," 
 says Blackstone, " or any other animal, of its 
 own motion kill as well an infant as an adult, 
 or if a cart run over him, they shall in either 
 case be forfeited as deodand." If a man, in 
 driving a cart, tumble to the ground and lose his 
 life by the wheel passing over him, if a tree fall 
 on a man and cause his death, or if a horse kick 
 his keeper and kill him, then the wheel, the tree 
 and the horse are deodands pro rege, and are to 
 be sold for the benefit of the poor. 
 
 Omnia quae movent ad mortem sunt Deo 
 danda is the principle laid down by Bracton. 
 If therefore a cart-wheel run over a man and kill 
 him, not only is the wheel, but also the whole 
 cart to be declared deodand, because the mo- 
 mentum of the cart in motion contributed to the 
 man's death; but if the shaft fall upon a man 
 and kill him, then only the shaft is deodand, 
 since the cart did not participate in the crime. 
 It is also stated, curiously enough, that if an 
 infant fall from a cart not in motion and be 
 killed, neither the horse nor the cart shall be
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 187 
 
 declared deodand; not so, however, if an adult 
 come to his death in this manner. The ground 
 of this distinction is not quite clear; although 
 it may arise from the assumption that the child 
 had no business there, or that such an accident 
 could not have happened to an adult, unless 
 there was something irregular and perverse in 
 the conduct of the animal or the vehicle. In 
 the archives of Maryland, edited by Dr. William 
 Hand Browne and Miss Harrison in 1887, men- 
 tion 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." 
 
 According to an old Anglo-Saxon law a sword 
 or other object by which a man had been slain, 
 was not regarded as pure (gesund) until the 
 crime had been expiated, and therefore could not 
 be used, but must be set apart as a sacrifice. A 
 sword-cutler would not take such a weapon to 
 polish or repair without a certificate that it was 
 gesund or free from homicidal taint, so as not 
 to render himself liable for any harm it might 
 inflict, since it was supposed to exert a certain 
 magical and malicious influence. Also an 
 ancient municipal law r of the city of Schleswig 
 stipulated that the builder of a house should be 
 held responsible in case any one should be killed 
 by a beam, block, rafter or other piece of timber,
 
 1 88 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 and pay a fine of nine marks, or give the object 
 that had committed the manslaughter to the 
 family or kinsmen of the slain. If he failed to 
 do so and built the contaminated timber into 
 the edifice, then the owner had to atone for the 
 homicide with the whole house. (Cf. Heinrich 
 Brunner : Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, II. p. 
 557, Anm. 31.) A modern survival of this legal 
 principle is the notion, current especially among 
 criminals, that any part of the body of a deceased 
 person, or better still of an executed murderer, 
 exerts a magical and protective power or brings 
 good luck. It is by no means uncommon among 
 the peasants and lower classes of Europe to put 
 the finger of a dead thief under the threshold 
 in order to protect the house homcepathically 
 against theft. The persistency of this supersti- 
 tion is shown by the fact that a farmer's hired 
 man named Sier and belonging to the hamlet 
 of Heumaden, was tried at Weiden in Bavaria, 
 May 23, 1894, an d convicted of having exhumed 
 the body of a newly buried child in the church- 
 yard of Moosbach and taken out one of its eyes, 
 which he supposed would render him invisible 
 to mortal sight like the famous tarnkappc of old 
 German mythology, and thus enable him to 
 indulge with impunity his propensity to steal. 
 For this sacrilege he was sentenced to one year 
 and two months' imprisonment and to the loss 
 of civil rights for three years. 
 
 In some of the Scottish islands it is the custom 
 to beach a boat, from which a fisherman had
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 189 
 
 been drowned, cursing it for its misdeed and 
 letting it dry and fall to pieces in the sun. The 
 boat is guilty of manslaughter and must no 
 longer be permitted to sail the sea with innocent 
 craft. Scotch law does not seem to have recog- 
 nized deodand in the strictly etymological sense 
 of the term, but only escheat, in other words, 
 the confiscated objects were not necessarily ap- 
 pled to pious purposes -pro anima regis et 
 omnium fidelium defunctorum- but were simply 
 forfeited to the king or to the state. This form 
 of confiscation never prevailed so generally in 
 Central and Eastern, as in Western Europe. 
 Some German communities and territorial sove- 
 reigns introduced it from France, but so modified 
 the practical application of the principle as to 
 award to the injured party the greater portion, 
 in Liineburg, for example, two-thirds of the 
 value of the confiscated animal or object. (Vide 
 Kraut's Stadtrecht von Liineburg, No. XCVII. 
 Cited by Von Amira, p. 594.) 
 
 Blackstone's theories of the origin of deodands 
 are exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory. Evi- 
 dently the ^earned author of the Commentaries 
 could give no consistent explanation of these 
 vestiges of ancient criminal legislation. His 
 statement that they were intended to punish the 
 owner of the forfeited property for his negli- 
 gence, and his further assertion that they were 
 " designed, in the blind days of popery, as an 
 expiation for the souls of such as were snatched 
 away by sudden death," are equally incorrect.
 
 190 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 In most cases the owner was perfectly innocent 
 and very frequently was himself the victim of 
 the accident. He suffered only incidentally 
 from a penalty imposed for a wholly different 
 purpose, just as a slaveholder incurs loss when 
 his human chattel commits murder and is hanged 
 for it. The primal object was to atone for the 
 taking of life in accordance with certain crude 
 conceptions of retribution. Under hierarchical 
 governments the prominent idea was to appease 
 the wrath of God, who otherwise might visit 
 mankind with famine and pestilence and divers 
 retaliatory scourges. For the same reason the 
 property of a suicide was deodand. Thus the 
 wife and children of the deceased, who may be 
 supposed to have already suffered most from 
 the fatal act, were subjected to additional punish- 
 ment for it by being robbed of their rightful 
 inheritance. Yet this was by no means the in- 
 tention of the lawmakers, who simply wished 
 to prescribe an adequate atonement for a griev- 
 ous offence, and in seeking to accomplish this 
 main purpose, ignored the effect of their action 
 upon the fortunes of the heirs or deemed it a 
 matter of minor consideration. 
 
 Ancient legislators uniformly regarded a felo 
 de se as a criminal against society and treated 
 him as a kind of traitor. The man had enjoyed 
 the support and protection of the body-politic 
 during his infancy and youth, and, by taking 
 his own life, he shook off the responsibilities and 
 shirked the duties devolving upon him as an
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 191 
 
 adult member of the commonwealth. This is 
 why self-murder was called felony and as such 
 involved forfeiture of goods. Calchas would not 
 permit the body of "the mad Ajax," who died 
 by his own hand, to be burned; and the Chris- 
 tian Church of to-day refuses to bury in conse- 
 crated ground with religious rites any person 
 who deliberately cuts short the thread of his 
 existence and thus commits treason against the 
 Most High. The Athenians ignominiously 
 lopped off the hand of a suicide and buried the 
 guilty instrument of his death, as an accursed 
 thing, apart from the rest of the interred or 
 incremated body. In some communities all 
 persons over sixty years of age have been left 
 free to kill themselves, if they wished to do so. 
 They had performed the duties of citizenship and 
 of procreation and were permitted to retire in 
 this way, if they saw fit. In very ancient times, 
 the magistrates of Massalia (Marseilles, then a 
 Greek colony) are said to have kept on hand a 
 supply of poison to be given to any citizen, who, 
 on due examination, was found to have good 
 and sufficient reason for taking his own life. 
 Suicide was thus legalized and facilitated, and 
 thereby rendered honourable, and was perhaps 
 found more convenient and economical than to 
 grant pensions or to support paupers. It was a 
 summary method of getting rid of those who had 
 finished the struggle for existence or failed in 
 it, and in either case might be a burden to them- 
 selves or to the state. On the other hand, when
 
 192 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 a suicidal mania seized upon the maidens of 
 Miletos, an Ionian city in Caria, and threatened 
 to produce a dearth of wives and mothers, the 
 municipal authorities decreed that the bodies of 
 all such persons should be exposed naked in the 
 market-place, in order that virgin modesty and 
 shame might overcome the desire of death, and 
 check a self-destructive passion extremely detri- 
 mental to the Milesian commonwealth. 
 
 It is true, as Blackstone asserts, that the 
 Church claimed deodands as her due and put 
 the price of them into her own coffers ; but this 
 fact does not explain their origin. They were 
 an expression of the same feeling that led the 
 public authorities to fill up a well, in which a 
 person had been drowned, not as a precautionary 
 measure, but as a solemn act of expiation ; or 
 that condemned and confiscated a ship, which, 
 by lurching, had thrown a man overboard and 
 caused his death. 
 
 Deodands were not abolished in England until 
 the reign of Queen Victoria. With the excep- 
 tion of some vestiges of primitive legislation 
 still lingering in maritime law, they are, in 
 modern codes, one of the latest applications of a 
 penal principle, which, in Athens, expatriated 
 stocks and stones, and in other countries of 
 Europe excommunicated bugs and sent beasts to 
 the stake and to the gallows.
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 193 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MEDIAEVAL AND MODERN PENOLOGY 
 
 A STRIKING and significant indication of the 
 remarkable change that has come over the spirit 
 of legislation, and more especially of criminal 
 jurisprudence, in comparatively recent times, is 
 the fact that whereas, a few generations ago, law- 
 givers and courts of justice still continued to 
 treat brutes as men responsible for their mis- 
 deeds, and to punish them capitally as male- 
 factors, the tendency now-a-days is to regard men 
 as brutes, acting automatically or under an in- 
 sane and irresistible impulse to evil, and to plead 
 this innate and constitutional proclivity, in pro- 
 secution for murder, as an extenuating or even 
 wholly exculpating circumstance. Some persons 
 even maintain, as we have already seen, that 
 such criminals are diabolically possessed and 
 thus account for their inveterate and otherwise 
 incredible perversity on the theory held by the 
 highest authorities in the Middle Ages concern- 
 ing the nature of noxious animals. 
 
 Mediaeval jurists and judges did not stop to 
 solve intricate problems of psycho-pathology nor 
 13
 
 194 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 to sift the expert evidence of the psychiater. 
 The legal maxim : Si duo faciunt idem non est 
 idem (if two do the same thing, it is not the 
 same) was too fine a distinction for them, even 
 when one of the doers was a brute beast. The 
 puzzling knots, which we seek painfully to untie 
 and often succeed only in hopelessly tangling, 
 they boldly cut with executioner's sword. They 
 dealt directly with overt acts and administered 
 justice with a rude and retaliative hand, more 
 accustomed and better adapted to clinch a fist 
 and strike a blow than to weigh motives nicely 
 in a balance, to measure gradations of culpa- 
 bility, or to detect delicate differences in the 
 psychical texture and spiritual qualities of deeds. 
 They put implicit faith in Jack Cade's prescrip- 
 tion of " hempen caudle " and " pap of hatchet " 
 as radical remedies for all forms and degrees of 
 criminal alienation and murderous aberration of 
 mind. Phlebotomy was the catholicon of the 
 physician and the craze of the jurist; blood- 
 letting was regarded as the only infallible cure 
 for all the ills that afflict the human and the 
 social body. Doctors of physic and doctors of 
 law vied with each other in applying this 
 panacea. The red-streaked pole of the barber- 
 surgeon and the reeking scaffold, symbols of 
 venesection as a means of promoting the physical 
 and moral health of the community, were the 
 appropriate signs of medicine and jurisprudence. 
 Hygeia and Justicia, instead of being repre-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 195 
 
 sented by graceful females feeding the emblem- 
 atic serpent of recuperation or holding with 
 firm and even hand the well-poised scales of 
 equity, would have been more fitly typified by 
 two enormous leeches gorged with blood. 
 
 Even the dead, who should have been hanged, 
 but escaped their due punishment, could not rest 
 in their graves until the corpse had suffered the 
 proper legal penalty at the hands of the public 
 executioner. Their restless ghosts wandered 
 about as vampires or other malicious spooks 
 until their crimes had been expiated by digging 
 up their bodies and suspending them from the 
 gallows. Culprits, who died on the rack or in 
 prison, were brought to the scaffold as though 
 they were still alive. In 1685, a were- wolf, sup- 
 posed to be the incarnation of a deceased burgo- 
 master of Ansbach, did much harm in the neigh- 
 bourhood of that city, preying upon the herds 
 and even devouring women and children. With 
 great difficulty the ravenous beast was finally 
 killed; its carcass was then clad in a tight suit 
 of flesh-coloured cere-cloth, resembling in tint 
 the human skin, and adorned with a chestnut 
 brown wig and a long whitish beard ; the snout 
 of the beast was cut off and a mask of the burgo- 
 master's features substituted for it, and the 
 counterfeit presentment thus produced was 
 hanged by order of the court. The pelt of the 
 strangely transmogrified wolf was stuffed and 
 preserved in the margrave's cabinet of curiosities
 
 196 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 as a memorial of the marvellous event and as 
 ocular proof of the existence of were-wolves. 
 
 In Hungary and the Slavic countries of Eastern 
 Europe the public execution of vampires was 
 formerly of frequent occurrence, and the super- 
 stition, which gave rise to such proceedings, still 
 prevails among the rural population of those 
 semi-civilized lands. In 1337, a herdsman near 
 the town of Cadan came forth from his grave 
 every night, visiting the villages, terrifying the 
 inhabitants, conversing affably with some and 
 murdering others. Every person, with whom 
 he associated, was doomed to die within eight 
 days and to wander as a vampire after death. 
 In order to keep him in his grave a stake was 
 driven through his body, but he only laughed 
 at this clumsy attempt to impale a ghost, saying : 
 " You have really rendered me a great service 
 by providing me with a staff, with which to ward 
 off the dogs when I go out to walk." At length 
 it was decided to give him over to two public 
 executioners to be burned. We are informed 
 that when the fire began to take effect, " he drew 
 up his feet, bellowed for a while like a bull and 
 hee-hawed like an ass, until one of the execu- 
 tioners stabbed him in the side, so that the blood 
 oozed out and the evil finally ceased." 
 
 Again in 1345, in the town of Lewin, a potter's 
 wife, who was reputed to be a witch, died and, 
 owing to suspicions of her pact with Satan, was 
 refused burial in consecrated ground and dumped
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 197 
 
 into a ditch like a dog. The event proved that 
 she was not a good Christian, for instead of 
 remaining quietly in her grave, such as it was, 
 she roamed about in the form of divers unclean 
 beasts, causing much terror and slaying sundry 
 persons. Thereupon she was exhumed and it 
 was found that she had chewed and swallowed 
 one half of her face-cloth, which, on being pulled 
 out of her throat, showed stains of blood. A 
 stake was driven through her breast, but this 
 precautionary measure only made matters worse. 
 She now walked abroad with the stake in her 
 hand and killed quite a number of people with 
 this formidable weapon. She was then taken 
 up a second time and burned, whereupon she 
 ceased from troubling. The efficacy of this post- 
 mortem auto da fe was accepted as conclusive 
 proof that her neighbours had neglected to per- 
 form their whole religious duty in not having 
 burned her when she was alive, and were thus 
 punished for their remissness. 
 
 Dopier cites also the case of Stephen Hiibner 
 of Trautenau, who wandered about after death 
 as a vampire, frightening and strangling several 
 individuals. By order of the court his body was 
 disinterred and decapitated under the gallows- 
 tree. When his head was struck off, a stream of 
 blood spurted forth, although he had been already 
 five months buried. His remains were reduced 
 to ashes and nothing more was heard of him. 
 
 In I573i the parliament of Dole published a
 
 198 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 decree permitting the inhabitants of the Franche 
 Comte" to pursue and kill a were-wolf or loup- 
 garou, which infested that province; "not- 
 withstanding the existing laws concerning the 
 chase," the people were empowered to " assemble 
 with javelins, halberds, pikes, arquebuses and 
 clubs to hunt and pursue the said were-wolf in 
 all places, where they could find it, and to take, 
 bind and kill it, without incurring any fine or 
 other penalty." The hunt seems to have been 
 successful, if we may judge from the fact that 
 the same tribunal in the following year (1574) 
 condemned to be burned a man named Gilles 
 Gamier, who ran on all fours in the forest and 
 fields and devoured little children "even on 
 Friday." The poor lycanthrope, it appears, 
 had as slight respect for ecclesiastical fasts as the 
 French pig already mentioned, which was not 
 restrained by any feeling of piety from eating 
 infants on a jour maigre. 
 
 Henry VIII. of England summoned Thomas 
 a Becket to appear before the Star Chamber to 
 answer for his crimes and then had him con- 
 demned as a traitor, and his bones, that had 
 been nearly four centuries in the tomb and wor- 
 shipped as holy relics by countless pilgrims, 
 burned and scattered to the winds. 
 
 When Stephen VI. succeeded to the tiara in 
 896, one of his first acts was to cause the body of 
 his predecessor, Formosus, to be exhumed and 
 brought to trial on the charge of having un-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 199 
 
 lawfully and sacrilegiously usurped the papal 
 dignity. A writ of summons was issued in due 
 form and the corpse of the octogenarian pope, 
 which had lain already eight months in the 
 grave, was dug up, re-arrayed in full pontificals 
 and seated on a throne in the council-hall of St. 
 Peter's, where a synod had been convened to 
 adjudicate upon the case. No legal formality 
 was omitted in this strange procedure and a 
 deacon was appointed to defend the accused, 
 although the synodical jury was known to be 
 packed and the verdict predetermined. Formosus 
 was found guilty and condemned to deposition. 
 No sooner was the sentence pronounced than the 
 executioners thrust him from the throne, stripped 
 him of his pontifical robes and other ensigns of 
 office, cut off the three benedictory fingers of his 
 right hand, dragged him by the feet out of the 
 judgment-hall and threw his body " as a pesti- 
 lential thing" (uti quoddam mephiticum) into 
 the Tiber. Not until several months later, after 
 Stephen himself had been strangled in prison, 
 were the mutilated and putrefied remains of For- 
 mosus taken out of the water and restored to 
 the tomb. The Athenian Prytaneum, as we 
 have already seen, was guilty of the childish- 
 ness of prosecuting inanimate objects, but it 
 never violated the sepulchre for the purpose of 
 inflicting post-humous punishment on corpses. 
 The perpetration of this brutality was reserved 
 for the Papal See.
 
 2oo The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 From the standpoint of ancient and mediaeval 
 jurisprudents the overt act alone was assumed 
 to constitute the crime; the mental condition of 
 the criminal was never or a least very seldom 
 taken into consideration. It is remarkable how 
 long this crude and superficial conception of 
 justice prevailed, and how very recently even the 
 first attempts have been made to establish penal 
 codes on a philosophic basis. The punishable- 
 ness of an offence is now generally recognized 
 as depending solely upon the sanity and ration- 
 ality of the offender. Crime, morally and legally 
 considered, presupposes, not perfect, for such a 
 thing does not exist, but normal freedom of the 
 will on the part of the agent. Where this ele- 
 ment is wanting, there is no culpabilty, whatever 
 may have been the consequences of the act. 
 Modern criminal law looks primarily to the 
 psychical origin of the deed, and only secondarily 
 to its physical effects; mediaeval criminal law 
 ignored the origin altogether, and regarded ex- 
 clusively the effects, which it dealt with on the 
 homceopenal principle of similia similibus puni- 
 antur, for the most part blindly and brutally 
 applied. 
 
 Mancini, Lombroso, Garofalo, Albrecht, Bene- 
 dikt, Biichner, Moleschott, Despine, Fouillee, 
 Letourneau, Maudsley, Bruce Thompson, Nichol- 
 son, Minzloff, Notovich and other European 
 criminal lawyers, physiologists and anthro- 
 pologists have devoted themselves with peculiar
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 201 
 
 zeal and rare acuteness to the study and solution 
 of obscure and perplexing problems of psycho- 
 pathological jurisprudence, and have drawn nice 
 and often overnice distinctions in determining 
 degrees of personal responsibility. Judicial pro- 
 cedure no longer stops with testimony establish- 
 ing the bald facts in the case, but admits also the 
 evidence of the expert alienist in order to as- 
 certain to what extent the will of the accused 
 was free or functionally normal in its operation. 
 Here it is not a question of raving madness or 
 of drivelling idiocy, perceptible to the coarsest 
 understanding and the crassest ignorance; but 
 the slightest morbid disturbance, impairing the 
 full and healthy exercise of the mental faculties, 
 must be examined and estimated. If " privation 
 of mind " and " irresistible force," says Zupetta, 
 are exculpatory, then " partial vitiation of mind " 
 and " semi-irresistible force " are entitled to the 
 same or at least to proportional consideration. 
 There are states of being which are mutually 
 contradictory and exclusive and cannot co-exist, 
 such as life and death. A partial state of life 
 or death is impossible; such expressions as half- 
 alive and half-dead are hyperbolical figures of 
 speech used for purely rhetorical purposes ; taken 
 literally, they are simply absurd. It is not so, 
 however, with states of mind. The intellect, 
 whose soundness is the first condition of account- 
 ability, may be perfectly clear, manifesting itself 
 in all its fulness and power, or it may be parti-
 
 2O2 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 ally obscured. So, too, the will, whose self- 
 determination is the second condition of account- 
 ability, may assert itself with complete freedom 
 and untrammelled force, or it may act under stress 
 and with imperfect volition. Moral coercion, 
 whether arising from external influences, abnormi- 
 ties of the physical organism or defects of the 
 mental constitution, is not less real because it is 
 not easy to detect and may not be wholly irre- 
 sistible. For this reason, it involves no contra- 
 diction in terms and is not absurd to call an 
 action half-conscious, half-voluntary, or half- 
 constrained. " Partial vitiation of mind " is a 
 state distinctly recognized in psychiatrical 
 science. In like manner, there is no essential 
 incongruity in affirming that an impulse may be 
 the result of a " semi-irresistible force." But 
 these mental conditions and forces do not mani- 
 fest themselves with equal obviousness and in- 
 tensity in all cases; sometimes they are scarcely 
 appreciable; again they verge upon "absolute 
 privation of mind " and " wholly irresistible 
 force;" and it is the duty of the judge to adjust 
 the penalty to the gradations of guilt as deter- 
 mined by the greater or less freedom of the 
 agent. 
 
 The same process of reasoning would lead to 
 the admission of quasi-vitiations of mind and 
 quasi-irresistible forces as grounds of exculpa- 
 tion. Thus one might go on analyzing and refin- 
 ing away human responsibility, and reducing all
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 203 
 
 crime to resultants of mental derangement, until 
 every malefactor would come to be looked upon, 
 not as a culprit to be delivered over to the sharp 
 stroke of the headsman or the safe custody of the 
 jailer, but as an unfortunate victim of morbid 
 states and uncontrollable impulses, to be con- 
 signed to the sympathetic care of the psychiater. 
 Italian anthropologists and jurisprudents have 
 been foremost and gone farthest, both theo- 
 retically and practically, in this reaction from 
 mediaeval conceptions of crime and its proper 
 punishment. This violent recoil from extreme 
 cruelty to excessive commiseration is due, in a 
 great measure, to the Italian temperament, to a 
 peculiar gentleness and impressionableness of 
 character, which, combined with an instinctive 
 aversion to whatever shocks the senses and mars 
 the pleasure of the moment, are apt to degenerate 
 into shallow sentimentality and sickly sensi- 
 bility, thereby enfeebling and perverting the 
 moral sense and distorting all ideas of right and 
 justice. To minds thus constituted the cool and 
 deliberate condemnation of a human being to 
 the gallows is an atrocity, in comparison with 
 which a fatal stab in the heat of passion or under 
 strong provocation seems a light and venial 
 transgression. This maudlin sympathy with the 
 guilty living man, who is in danger of suffering 
 for his crime, to the entire forgetfulness of the 
 innocent dead man, the victim of his anger or 
 cupidity, pervades all classes of society, and has
 
 204 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 stimulated the ingenuity of lawyers and legisla- 
 tors to discover mitigating moments and exten- 
 uating circumstances and other means of loosen- 
 ing and enlarging the intricate meshes of the 
 penal code so as to permit the culprit to escape. 
 To this end they eagerly seized upon the doctrine 
 of evolution and endeavoured to seek the origin 
 of crime in hereditary propensities, atavistic recur- 
 rences, physical degeneracies and other organic 
 fatalities, for which no one can be held personally 
 responsible, and constructed upon the basis of 
 the most recent scientific researches a penological 
 system giving free scope and full gratification 
 to this pitying and palliating disposition. 
 
 But, although the Italians have been pioneers 
 in this movement, it has not been confined to 
 them ; it extends to all civilized nations, and 
 expresses a general tendency of the age. Even 
 the Germans, those leaders in theory and lag- 
 gards in practice, whose studies and speculations 
 have illustrated all forms and phases of judicial 
 procedure, but who adhere so conservatively to 
 ancient methods and resist so stubbornly the 
 tides of reform in their own courts have yielded 
 on this point. They no longer regard insanity 
 and idiocy as the only grounds of exemption 
 from punishment, but include in the same 
 category " all morbid disturbances of mental 
 activity," and ''all states of mind in which the 
 free determination of the will is not indeed wholly 
 destroyed, but only partially impaired." In
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 205 
 
 order to realize the radical changes that have 
 taken place in this direction within a relatively 
 recent period, it will suffice merely to compare 
 the present criminal code of the German Empire 
 with the Austrian code of 1803, the Bavarian 
 code of 1813, and the Prussian code of 1851. 
 It must be remembered, too, that these changes 
 have been effected under the drift of public 
 opinion in spite of the political preponderance of 
 Prussia and her strong bureaucratic influence, 
 which has always been exerted in favour of severe 
 penalties, and shown slight consideration for 
 individual frailties and criminal idiosyncrasies 
 in inflicting punishment. As the stronghold of 
 a stolid and supercilious squirearchy (Junker- 
 thum) in Germany, Prussia has stubbornly re- 
 sisted to the last every reformatory movement 
 in civil and social, and especially in criminal 
 legislation. 
 
 A recent decision of the supreme court of the 
 German Empire (pronounced in the summer of 
 1894) seems to put a check upon this tendency 
 by rejecting the plea of " moral insanity " in the 
 extenuation of crime. As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, the question whether such a state of mind 
 as " moral insanity " exists 'or can exist has not 
 yet been settled; and so long as psychiaters do 
 not agree as to the actuality or possibility of this 
 anomalous mental condition, courts of justice 
 may very properly refuse to take it into con- 
 sideration or to allow it to exert the slightest in- 
 fluence upon their judgment in the infliction of
 
 206 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 judicial punishment. Moral insanity, as usually 
 defined, involves a disturbance of the moral per- 
 ceptions and a derangement of the emotional 
 nature, without impairing the distinctively in- 
 tellectual faculties. The supposed victim of this 
 hypothetical form of madness is capable of 
 thinking logically and often shows remarkable 
 astuteness in forming his plans and executing 
 his criminal purposes, but seems utterly desti- 
 tute of the moral sense and of all the finer feel- 
 ings of humanity, performing the most atro- 
 cious deeds without hesitation and remembering 
 them without the slightest compunction. In 
 moral stolidity and the lack of susceptibility he 
 is on a level with the lowest savage. German 
 psychiaters, on the whole, are inclined to regard 
 such persons, not as morally insane, but as 
 morally degenerate and depraved; and German 
 jurists and judges are not disposed to admit such 
 vitiation of character as an extenuating cir- 
 cumstance, especially at a time when criminals 
 of this class are on the increase and are banded 
 together to overthrow civilized society and to 
 introduce an era of anarchy and barbarism. The 
 decision of the German judicatory is therefore 
 not reactionary, but merely precautionary, and 
 simply indicates a wise determination to keep 
 the administration of criminal law unencumbered 
 by theories, which science has not yet fully 
 established and which at present can only serve 
 to paralyze the arm of retributive justice. 
 
 Mediaeval penal justice sought to inflict the
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 207 
 
 greatest possible amount of suffering on the 
 offender and showed a diabolical fertility of in- 
 vention in devising new methods of torture even 
 for the pettiest trespasses. The monuments of 
 this barbarity may now be seen in European 
 museums in the form of racks, thumbkins, inter- 
 larded hares, Pomeranian bonnets, Spanish 
 boots, scavenger's daughters, iron virgins and 
 similar engines of cruelty. Until quite recently 
 an iron virgin, with its interior full of long and 
 sharp spikes, was exhibited in a subterranean 
 passage at Nuremberg, on the very spot where it 
 is supposed to have once performed its horrible 
 functions; and in Munich this inhuman instru- 
 ment of punishment was in actual use as late as 
 the beginning of the nineteenth century. The 
 criminal code of Maria Theresa, published in 
 1769, contained forty-five large copperplate 
 engravings, illustrating the various modes of 
 torture prescribed in the text for the purpose of 
 extorting confession and evidently designed to 
 serve as object lessons for the instruction of the 
 tormentor and the intimidation of the accused. 
 That Prussia was the first country in Germany to 
 abolish judicial torture was due, not to the pro- 
 gressive spirit of the nation or of its tribunals, 
 but solely to the superior enlightenment and 
 energy of Frederic the Great, who effected this 
 reform arbitrarily and against the will of jurists 
 and judges by cabinet-orders issued in 1740 and 
 1745. Crimes which women are under peculiar
 
 208 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 temptation to commit, were punished with extra- 
 ordinary severity. Thus the infanticide was 
 buried alive, a small tube communicating with 
 the outer air being placed in her mouth in order 
 to prolong her life and her agony. A case of 
 this kind is recorded in the proceedings of the 
 " Malefiz-Gericht " or criminal court of Ensis- 
 heim in Alsatia under the date of February 3, 
 1570. In 1401, an apprentice, who stole from 
 his master five pfennigs (then as now the 
 smallest coin of Germany and worth about the 
 fifth of a cent), was condemned to have both his 
 ears cut off. Incredible barbarities of this kind 
 were practised by some of the best and noblest 
 men of that age. Thus Cardinal Carlo Borro- 
 meo, who was pre-eminent among his con- 
 temporaries for the purity of his life and the 
 benevolence of his character, did not hesitate to 
 condemn Fra Tommaso di Mileto, a Franciscan 
 monk, to be walled up alive, because he enter- 
 tained heretical notions concerning the sinful- 
 ness of eating meat on Friday, and expressed 
 doubts touching the worship of images, indulg- 
 ences, the supreme and infallible authority of 
 the pope, and the real presence in the eucharist. 
 This cruel sentence, a striking illustration of the 
 words of Lucretius, 
 
 "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum," 
 
 was pronounced December 16, 1564, as follows: 
 " I condemn you to be walled up in a place
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 209 
 
 enclosed by four walls, where, with anguish of 
 heart and abundance of tears, you shall bewail 
 your sins and grievous offences committed 
 against the majesty of God, and the holy mother 
 Church and the religion of St. Francis, the 
 founder of your order." A bishop, who should 
 impose such a punishment now-a-days, would be 
 very properly declared insane and divested of his 
 office. 
 
 Much ridicule has been cast upon the so-called 
 " Blue Laws " of Connecticut on account of the 
 narrowness and pettiness of their prevailing 
 spirit. From our present point of view they are 
 absurd and in many respects atrocious, but com- 
 pared with the penal codes of that time they 
 mark a great advance in human legislation. 
 They reduced the number of crimes, then 
 punishable in England by death, from two 
 hundred and tw r enty-three to fourteen. In the 
 mother-country, as late as the seventeenth 
 century, counterfeiters and issuers of false coin 
 were condemned to be boiled to death in oil by 
 slow degrees. The culprit was suspended over 
 the cauldron and gradually let down into it, first 
 boiling the feet, then the legs and so on, until all 
 the flesh was separated from the bones and the 
 body reduced to a skeleton. The Puritans of New 
 England, relentless as they were in their dealings 
 with sectaries, were never so ruthless as this ; 
 nor is it probable that they would have inflicted 
 capital punishment upon their own " stubborn 
 14
 
 210 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 and rebellious sons," or upon persons who 
 "worship any other God but the Lord God," 
 had it not been for precedents recorded in laws 
 enacted by a semi-civilized people thousands of 
 years ago and supposed to have been dictated by 
 divine wisdom. They failed to perceive the in- 
 congruity of attempting to rear a democratic 
 commonwealth on theocratic foundations and 
 made the fatal mistake of planning their struc- 
 ture after what they regarded as the perfect 
 model of the Jewish Zion. 
 
 If we compare these barbarities with the law 
 recently enacted by the legislature of the state of 
 New York, whereby capital punishment is to be 
 inflicted as quickly and painlessly as possible by 
 means of electricity, we shall be able to appre- 
 ciate the immense difference between the medi- 
 aeval and the modern spirit in the conception and 
 execution of penal justice. 
 
 A point of practical importance, which the 
 criminal anthropologist has to consider is the 
 relation of moral to penal responsibility. If 
 there is no freedom of the will and the commis- 
 sion of crime is the necessary result of physio- 
 logical idiosyncrasies, hereditary predisposi- 
 tions, brachycephalous, dolichocephalous or 
 microcephalous peculiarities, anomalies of cere- 
 bral convolution, or other anatomical asym- 
 metries, over which the individual has no control 
 and by which his destiny is determined, then he 
 is certainly not morally responsible for his con-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 211 
 
 duct. But is he on this account to be exempt 
 from punishment? The vast majority of crimin- 
 alists answer this question unhesitatingly in the 
 negative, declaring that penal legislation is 
 independent of metaphysical opinion, and that 
 punishment is proper and imperative so far as it 
 is essential to the protection and preservation 
 of society. If the infliction of the penalties 
 depriving a man of his freedom or his life is 
 found to secure these ends, it is the duty of the 
 tribunals established for the administration of 
 justice to impose them without troubling them- 
 selves about the mental condition of the culprit or 
 stopping to discuss problems which belong to 
 the province of the psychiater. Legal tribunals 
 are not offices in which candidates for the 
 insane asylum are examined or certificates of 
 admission to reformatories issued, but are organ- 
 ized as a terror to evil-doers in the general 
 interests of society, and all their decisions should 
 have this object in view. If a madman is not 
 hanged for murder, it is solely because such a 
 procedure would exert no deterring influence 
 upon other madmen ; society protects itself, in 
 cases of this kind, by depriving the dangerous 
 individual of his liberty and thus preventing him 
 from doing harm ; but it has no right to inflict 
 upon him wanton and superfluous suffering. 
 Even if it should be deemed desirable to kill him, 
 the method of his removal should be such as to 
 cause the least possible pain and publicity.
 
 212 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Here, too, the welfare of society is the determina- 
 tive factor. 
 
 This doctrine reduces confirmed criminals to 
 the condition of ferocious beasts and venomous 
 reptiles, and logically demands that they should 
 be eliminated for precisely the same reason that 
 noxious animals are exterminated, although 
 neither the human nor the animal creatures are 
 to blame for the perniciousness of their inborn 
 proclivities and natural instincts. In the eyes of 
 Courcelle-Seneuil a prison is a " kind of 
 menagerie"; Naquet, the French chemist and 
 senator, goes still farther, declaring that men 
 are no more culpable for being criminal than 
 vitriol is for being corrosive, and adding that it 
 is our own fault if we put this stuff into our tea 
 and are poisoned by it. The same writer main- 
 tains that " there is no more demerit in being 
 perverse than in being cross-eyed or hump- 
 backed." In a recent lecture on criminal juris- 
 prudence and biology Professor Benedikt cites 
 the case of a Moravian robber and murderer, 
 whose brain was found on dissection to resemble 
 that of a beast of prey and who was therefore, in 
 the opinion of the eminent Viennese authority, 
 no more responsible for his bloody deeds than is 
 a lion or a tiger for its ravages. The corollary 
 to this anatomical demonstration is that one 
 should treat such a man as a lion or a tiger and 
 shoot him on the spot. Atavistic relapses, defect- 
 ive cerebral development and other abnormities
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 2 1 3 
 
 undoubtedly occur in criminals, whose acts may 
 be traced, in some degree, to these physical im- 
 perfections and therefore be pathologically 
 stimulated and partially necessitated by them. 
 On the other hand, there are thousands of 
 persons with equally small and unsymmetrical 
 craniums, who do not commit crime, but remain 
 respectable, safe, and useful members of society. 
 Lombroso discovers in habitual malefactors a 
 tendency to tattoo their bodies; but this kind of 
 cuticular ornamentation indicates merely a low 
 development of the aesthetic sense, a barbarous 
 conception of the beautiful or what would be 
 called bad taste, and has not the slightest genetic 
 or symptomatic connection with crime and the 
 proclivity to perpetrate it. As a means of em- 
 bellishing the exterior man it may be rude and 
 unrefined, but after all it is only skin-deep, and 
 does not extend to the moral character. Honest 
 people of the lower classes take pleasure in dis- 
 figuring themselves in this way, and soldiers and 
 sailors, who are very far from furnishing the 
 largest percentage of criminals, are especially 
 addicted to it, simply because they find ample 
 leisure in the barracks and the forecastle to 
 undergo this slow and painful process of what 
 they deem adornment. According to Lombroso 
 criminals have as a rule thick heads of hair and 
 thin beards; but as the majority of them are com- 
 paratively young, these phenomena are by no 
 means remarkable. He has also found that the
 
 214 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 hair of such persons is usually black or dark 
 chestnut; had his investigations been carried on 
 in Norway and Sweden instead of in Italy, he 
 would have certainly come to the conclusion that 
 flaxen hair is an index of a criminal character. 
 
 It would be difficult to deny the existence of a 
 constitutionally criminal class, a persistently 
 perverse element, which is the born foe of all law 
 and order, at war with every form of social and 
 political organization and whose permanent 
 attitude of mind is that of the Irishman, who, on 
 landing in New York, inquired: " Have ye a 
 government here?" and, on receiving an affirma- 
 tive answer, replied, " Then I'm agin' it." 
 Criminal anthropologists have been especially 
 earnest in their endeavours to define this per- 
 nicious type and to determine the physiological 
 and physiognomical features, which characterize 
 and constitute it. This line of research is 
 unquestionably in the right direction, but as a 
 reaction against barren scholastic speculations 
 and brutal penal codes has been carried to excess 
 by enthusiastic specialists and led to broad 
 generalizations and hasty deductions from in- 
 sufficient data. Taine's definition of man as 
 " an animal of a higher species, that produces 
 poems and systems of philosophy, as silk-worms 
 spin cocoons and bees secrete honeycomb," 
 applies with equal force to the vicious side of 
 human nature. Criminal propensities, as well 
 as creative powers, are the resultants of race,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 215 
 
 temperament, climate, food, organism, environ- 
 ment and other pre-natal and post-natal in- 
 fluences and agencies, to which the individual 
 did not voluntarily subject himself and from 
 which he cannot escape. The acts, therefore, 
 which he performs, whether good or evil, are as 
 independent of his will as the colour of his hair 
 or the shape of his nose; for while they are 
 apparently volitional impulses, the wilt itself, 
 from which they seem to proceed, is determined 
 by forces as fixed and free from his control as 
 are those which render him blue-eyed or snub- 
 nosed. 
 
 The penological application of this philo- 
 sophical principle has given rise to numerous 
 theories concerning the nature and origin of 
 crime. Lombroso and his disciples, as we have 
 already intimated, attribute it to atavism or the 
 survival in the individual of the animal instincts 
 and low morals of the aboriginal barbarian. 
 The criminal is simply a savage let loose in a 
 civilized community and ignoring the ethical 
 conceptions developed by ages of culture and 
 performing actions that would have seemed 
 perfectly proper and praiseworthy in the eyes of 
 our pre-historic ancestors. The hero of the 
 Palaeolithic age is the brigand and cut-throat of 
 to-day. The criminal type is nothing but a 
 reversion to the primitive type of the race, and 
 the representatives of this school of anthropolo- 
 gists have been untiring in their efforts to dis-
 
 216 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 cover physical and moral characteristics common 
 to both : long arms like chimpanzees, four cir- 
 cumvolutions of the frontal lobes of the brain 
 like the large carnivora, small cranial capacity 
 like the cave-men, canine teeth like anthropoid 
 apes and a simian nose. This analogy extends 
 to the eyes, the ears, the hair, and even to the 
 internal organs, the liver, the heart and the 
 stomach, and the diseases by which they are 
 affected. It has also been observed that assas- 
 sins are brachycephalous and thieves dolicho- 
 cephalous. Marro maintains that in many cases 
 metaphors express real facts and embody the 
 common conclusions of mankind based upon 
 centuries of observation : swindlers have a foxy 
 look, long-fingered persons are naturally thiev- 
 ish, whereas a club-fisted fellow is pretty sure to 
 have a pugnacious disposition, and to be a born 
 rough. Nevertheless social surroundings, edu- 
 cational influences and other outward circum- 
 stances are important factors, not so much in 
 changing the character as in giving it direction ; 
 the same cerebral constitution and consequent 
 innate predisposition may make a man a hero or 
 a bravo, a dashing soldier like Phil Sheridan, or 
 a daring robber like Fra Diavolo, according to 
 the place of his birth and the nature of his 
 environment. 
 
 In common discourse we speak of atrabiliary, 
 spleeny, choleric, or even stomachous persons, 
 but such expressions are, in most cases, survivals
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 217 
 
 of antiquated beliefs concerning the functions of 
 certain physical organs. Hypochondria has no 
 more originary connection with the cartilage of 
 the breastbone than with the cartilage of the 
 ear. In the literal sense of the terms a large- 
 brained man is not necessarily of superior intel- 
 lectual power any more than a large-hearted man 
 is naturally generous or a large-handed man 
 instinctively grasping. So, too, the theory that 
 intelligence and morality are in direct proportion 
 to the size and symmetry of the encephalon is 
 not sustained by facts; at least the exceptions to 
 the rule are so many and so remarkable as to 
 render it extremely misleading and therefore of 
 little practical value as a scientific principle. 
 Gambetta's brain, for example, weighed only 
 1294 grammes, being fifty-eight grammes less in 
 weight than that of the average Parisian, and 
 w r as so abnormally irregular in its configuration 
 as to seem actually deformed. Any physiolo- 
 gist, says Dr. Manouvrier, who should come 
 across such a skull in a museum, would unhesi- 
 tatingly pronounce it to be that of a savage. The 
 third frontal circumvolution of the left lobe of 
 his brain had in the posterior part a supple- 
 mentary fold said by some to be the organ of 
 speech and by others to be the organ of theft; 
 perhaps both combined in the ability of the 
 orator to steal away men's hearts, as Antony 
 says of the seductive eloquence of Brutus. The 
 distinguished physiologist Bichat was an ardent
 
 2i8 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 advocate of this doctrine of the causal connec- 
 tion between cranial capacity and symmetry 
 and vigorous and well-balanced mental faculties, 
 but after his death his own cranium was found to 
 be conspicuously lacking in the very character- 
 istics which he deemed so essential to man as a 
 moral and intellectual being. The late German 
 professor Bischoff based his argument against 
 the higher education of woman on the fact that 
 the average female brain weighs only 1272 
 grammes, and asserted that a person with such 
 a light encephalon must be organically incom- 
 petent to master the various branches of study 
 taught in our universities. A post-mortem 
 examination proved his own brain to be consider- 
 ably inferior in weight to that of the average 
 woman. 
 
 Careful investigations would doubtless furnish 
 additional examples of this comical application 
 of the argumentum ad hominem in refutation of 
 the notion that intellectual capacity is determined 
 by the bulk of the brain or the shape of the skull. 
 Ugo Foscolo, one of the most celebrated of 
 modern Italian poets, had a cranium, which, 
 according to this standard of appreciation, ought 
 to have belonged to an idiot. On the other 
 hand, the brain of the " Hottentot Venus," 
 examined by Gratiolet, far surpassed in the 
 symmetry of both hemispheres and the perfection 
 of its circumvolutions the normal brains of the 
 Caucasian race. The same phenomenon has
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 219 
 
 been observed, although in a less striking 
 manner, occasionally in cretins and quite often 
 in criminals. Character is the resultant of a 
 multitude of combined forces, the great majority 
 of which are still unknown and perhaps unknow- 
 able quantities. The impulse given by each 
 must be exactly estimated in order to predeter- 
 mine the joint effect. No factor which con- 
 tributes to its formation must be overlooked, and 
 the acceptance of any one of them, however im- 
 portant it may seem to be, as the basis on which 
 to reform and reconstruct our penal legislation, 
 would be premature and pernicious. This 
 hobby-horsical tendency, which is the vice of 
 every specialist, is now the besetting sin of 
 criminal anthropologists, each of whom is firmly 
 convinced that he can reach the goal only on his 
 own garran. 
 
 " The more advanced criminalists," says Pro- 
 fessor Von Kirchenheim, "are becoming 
 thoroughly convinced that the penal codes of 
 to-day do not correspond to the criminal world 
 of to-day. No science has remained so deeply 
 rooted and grounded in scholasticism as juris- 
 prudence; and this evil is most clearly per- 
 ceptible in the province of criminal law. The 
 necessity of a change in our penal legislation 
 has already made itself widely felt. The contest 
 with crime must now be carried on in a differ- 
 ent manner from what it was when men waged 
 war with bows and arrows; modern criminality
 
 22O The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 must be fought, as it were, with repeating 
 rifles." In other words, we can never suppress 
 crime by meeting it with bludgeons and boomer- 
 angs and other rude implements of barbarous 
 warfare, but must encounter it with the finest 
 and most effective weapons of precision, which 
 the armoury of modern science can put into our 
 hands. Society has outgrown the crude concep- 
 tion of punishment as mere retaliation or retri- 
 bution incited by revenge. There is no doubt 
 that even in the most enlightened countries, 
 penology as a science is still in its infancy, and 
 is only just beginning to feel the uncomfortable 
 girding of its scanty swaddling-bands and 
 blindly kicking itself free from them. That this 
 first emancipatory effort should be somewhat 
 clumsy, and occasionally attended by comical 
 casualties and even serious disasters, lies in the 
 very nature of the case. It is evident, too, that 
 the antiquated and utterly irrational methods now 
 employed for the suppression of crime tend 
 directly to increase it. It is the aim of the posi- 
 tive, in distinction from the classical school of 
 criminalists to discover the real causes of criminal 
 actions, and thus to endeavour to eradicate or 
 neutralize them. A casual criminal, for example, 
 whom external conditions, accidental circum- 
 stances, sudden temptations or bad influences 
 have led astray, should not be treated in the 
 same manner, although guilty of the same overt 
 act, as the habitual or constitutional criminal,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 221 
 
 whose wrong-doing arises from a diseased, ill- 
 balanced or undeveloped mental or physical 
 organization, and is therefore an inborn and per- 
 haps irresistible proclivity. The latter is hardly 
 responsible for his conduct, and the possibility 
 of reforming him is slight. The only proper 
 thing to do with such a culprit is to render him 
 personally harmless to society either by death 
 or perpetual incarceration, and to prevent him 
 from propagating his kind. The law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest through selection suggests 
 as its necessary sequence the suppression of the 
 unfittest through sterilization. Nature has her 
 own effective and relentless method of attaining 
 this desirable result; but man is constantly 
 thwarting her beneficent purposes by all sorts of 
 pernicious schemes originating in factitious 
 sentimentalism and maudlin sympathy, which 
 under the plea of philanthropy tend to foster and 
 perpetuate moral monstrosities to the discom- 
 ifort and detriment of civilized society and the 
 permanent deterioration of the race. To sen- 
 tence persons of this class to eight or ten years' 
 imprisonment and then to turn them loose again 
 as a constant source of peril to mankind, is the 
 greatest folly that any tribunal can possibly com- 
 mit. It is a wrong done both to the criminal 
 and to the community of which he is a member. 
 The penalties imposed by the law should be de- 
 termined not solely by the enormity of the crime, 
 but chiefly by the character of the criminal.
 
 222 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Paradoxical as such a conclusion may be, it is 
 nevertheless a strictly logical deduction from the 
 premises, that the more corrupt he is by his 
 physical constitution and therefore the less cul- 
 pable he is from a moral point of view, the more 
 severe should be the sentence pronounced upon 
 him. Where the vicious propensity is in the 
 blood and beyond the reach of moral or penal 
 purgations, the only safety is in the elimination 
 of the individual, just as the only remedy for a 
 gangrened limb is amputation. We ridicule 
 ancient and mediaeval courts of justice for prose- 
 cuting bugs and beasts, but future generations 
 will condemn as equally absurd and outrageous 
 our judicial treatment of human beings, who can 
 no more help perpetrating deeds of violence, 
 under given conditions, than locusts and cater- 
 pillars can help consuming crops to the injury 
 of the husbandman, or wild beasts can help 
 rending and devouring their prey. It is also 
 interesting to know that in former times the 
 animal was not punished capitally because it 
 was supposed to have incurred guilt, but as a 
 memorial of the occurrence, or in the language 
 of canonical law : Non propter culpam sed 
 propter memoriam facti pecus occiditur. It was 
 put to death not because it was culpable, but 
 because it was harmful ; and this is the ground 
 on which the radical wing of criminal anthro- 
 pologists would repress and eliminate a vicious 
 person without regard to his mental soundness
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 223 
 
 or moral responsibility; to use Garofalo's meta- 
 phor he is a microbe injurious to the social 
 organism and must be destroyed. 
 
 Lombroso carries his theory of the innateness, 
 hereditability and ineradicableness of criminal 
 propensities so far as to affirm that "education 
 cannot change those who are born with perverse 
 instincts," and to despair of correcting an ob- 
 stinate bias of this sort even in a child. In 
 accordance with this idea his disciple, Le Bon, 
 proposes to " deport to distant countries all pro- 
 fessional criminals or persistent relapsers into 
 vice (recidhristes) together with their posterity," 
 and would thus practically revive the barbarous 
 principle of visiting the sins of the fathers upon 
 the children, although he does not regard their 
 conduct as sinful in the sense of being a volun- 
 tary transgression of the moral law, but as the 
 result of a transmitted taint and organic defici- 
 ency, for which the individual is in no wise 
 responsible. It is hardly necessary to add that 
 this doctrine is not sustained by the statistics of 
 reformatories, houses of refuge and similar in- 
 stitutions, which have now taken the place of the 
 prison and the scaffold in the case of juvenile 
 offenders. 
 
 Those who look upon crime as a pathological 
 phenomenon find a striking illustration and 
 strong confirmation of their views in violations 
 of the law committed under the impulse of 
 hypnotic suggestion. Some maintain that all
 
 224 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 acts originating in this manner are purely auto- 
 matic, and acquit the person performing them of 
 all moral and legal responsibility, since they 
 express the will and purpose of the hypnotizer, 
 who alone should be held accountable. Others 
 hold that the man, who consents to be hypno- 
 tized and thus voluntarily surrenders his will- 
 power and permits himself to be used as an 
 instrument for the perpetration of crime, should 
 be punished for his offences and not allowed to 
 go scot-free by pleading the force majeure of 
 hypnotic suggestion. The liability to punish- 
 ment, it is justly argued, would be a safeguard 
 to society by putting a wholesome and effective 
 check on hypnotic experimentations. There is 
 at least no reason why the hypnotized subject 
 should not be called to account for accomplicity. 
 Any passion may become automatic and irre- 
 sistible by long indulgence and assiduous culti- 
 vation, so that the man is overmastered by it 
 and cannot help yielding to it under strong tempt- 
 ation ; but the victim of a vicious habit has no 
 right to urge the force of an evil propensity in 
 exculpation of himself. The inborn or inveterate 
 badness of a man's character may explain, but 
 cannot excuse his bad conduct in the impartial 
 and inexorable eye of justice. So, too, he who 
 sins against his own worthiness and dignity as 
 a rational being by choosing to annul h'is power 
 of self-determination as a voluntary agent and 
 become a helpless tool in the hands of another,
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 225 
 
 ought not wholly to escape the consequences of 
 his folly. That the hypnotizer should be made 
 fully responsible for the realization of his sug- 
 gestions, no representative of either the positive 
 or classical school of criminalists would probably 
 deny. To take a man's life by means of hypnotic 
 suggestion is as truly subornation to murder as 
 to hire an assassin to plunge a dagger into his 
 heart. 
 
 As regards hypnotism itself, it would be 
 strange enough if we should discover in it the 
 real scientific basis of witchcraft, and modern 
 legislation should prosecute and punish hypno- 
 tizers as mediaeval legislation prosecuted and 
 punished sorcerers. The sympathetic influence 
 of a morbidly imaginative mind upon the body 
 in directing the currents of nervous energy and 
 increasing the flow of blood towards particular 
 points of the physical organism, so as to produce 
 stigmata and similar abnormal phenomena, has 
 long been recognized as an adequate explanation 
 of much mediaeval and modern miracle-monger- 
 ing. It would now seem as if hypnotism, or 
 the magnetic influence of one man's will upon 
 another man's mind and body were destined 
 to furnish the key to still greater marvels and 
 reveal the true nature and origin of what has 
 hitherto passed for divine inspiration or diabolical 
 possession. Charcot, Renaut, Fowler and other 
 eminent neuropathologists have conclusively 
 shown that certain forms of hysteria sometimes 
 15
 
 226 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 produce tumors, ulcers, muscular atrophy, para- 
 lysis of the limbs and like affections apparently 
 organic, but really nervous. In such cases any 
 kind of faith-cure, in which the patient has con- 
 fidence, prayer, the laying on of hands, the water 
 of Lourdes or of St. Ignatius, medals of St. 
 Benedict, scapularies of the Virgin, seraphic 
 girdles, a pilgrimage to the shrine of a saint or 
 contact with a holy relic may prove far more 
 efficacious than drugs and are therefore recom- 
 mended by priests and occasionally even pre- 
 scribed by physicians, who are far too en- 
 lightened to regard such healings as miraculous 
 or supernatural. The success of scientific re- 
 search in disclosing the physical basis of intel- 
 lectual life is gradually undermining the founda- 
 tions of so-called spiritualism, and rendering it 
 more and more impossible to mistake symptoms 
 of chlorosis and hysterical weakness for spiritual 
 gifts and signs of God's special favour. Sickly 
 women are no longer treated as seeresses and 
 their vague and incoherent sayings treasured as 
 oracular utterances. 
 
 One of the chief difficulties encountered by 
 those who seek to frame and administer penal 
 laws on psycho-pathological principles arises 
 from the fact that no one has ever yet been able 
 to give an exact and adequate definition of in- 
 sanity. However easy it may be to recognize 
 the grosser varieties of mental disorder, it is 
 often impossible even for an ex-pert to detect it
 
 Capital Punishment ot Animals 227 
 
 in its subtler forms, or to draw a hard and fast 
 line between sanity and insanity. An eminent 
 alienist affirms that very few persons we meet 
 in the counting-room, on the street or in society, 
 or with whom we enjoy pleasant intercourse at 
 their firesides, are of perfectly sound mind. 
 Nearly every one is a little touched ; some mole- 
 cule of the 6*rain has turned into a maggot; there 
 is some topic that cannot be introduced without 
 making the portals of the mind grate on their 
 golden hinges, some point at which we are 
 forced to say,- 
 
 " O, that way madness lies ; let me shun that." 
 
 It is possible, however, that this very opinion 
 may be a fixed idea or symptomatic eccentricity 
 of the alienist himself. The theory that all men 
 are monomaniacs may be merely his peculiar 
 monomania. Still there is unquestionably this 
 much truth in it, that nearly every person has 
 developed some faculty at the expense of the 
 others and thus destroyed his mental equilibrium. 
 Every tendency of this kind, which is not checked 
 or balanced and in some way rounded off in the 
 growth of the character, becomes morbidly strong 
 and leads to a sort of insanity. The specialist 
 is always exposed to this danger of growing into 
 a man of one idea; his monomania may be in 
 the direction of valuable research or in the pur- 
 suit of a foolish whim, resulting in useful in- 
 ventions or dissipating itself in chimerical pro-
 
 228 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 jects ; it may be a harmless crotchet or a vicious 
 proclivity, philanthropic or misanthropic; it is, 
 nevertheless, a bent or bias and so far a deviation 
 from the norm of perfect intellectual rectitude. 
 
 A madman, says Coleridge, is one who " mis- 
 takes his thoughts for person and things." 
 But here the frenzies of the lunatic intrench on 
 the functions of the poet, who " of imagination 
 all compact," takes his fancies for realities, 
 
 " Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 Coleridge's definition includes also the mytho- 
 pceic faculty, the power of projecting creations 
 of the mind and endowing them with objective 
 actuality and independent existence, which in 
 the infancy of the race peopled heaven and earth 
 with phantasms, and still croons over cradles 
 and babbles of brownie and fairy in nurseries 
 and chimney-corners. No progress of science 
 can wholly eradicate this tendency to mytholo- 
 gize. In the absence of better material, it seizes 
 upon the most prosaic and practical improve- 
 ments in modern household life and clothes 
 them with poetry and legend. The imaginative 
 child of New York or Boston, after feeding the 
 mind on fairy tales, converts the ordinary gas- 
 pipe into the den of a dragon, which puts forth 
 its fiery tongue when the knob is turned. The 
 sleeping figure of a virgin carved in marble and 
 copied from an ancient Greek sculpture of 
 Ariadne, which reposes on an arch in the park
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 229 
 
 of Sans-souci at Potsdam, has been transformed 
 by the popular imagination into an enchanted 
 princess, who will awake as soon as a horseman 
 succeeds in springing over it three times with his 
 steed. So vivid is the belief in this story that 
 many good Christians never pass through the 
 archway without making the sign of the cross 
 as a prophylactic against possible demonic in- 
 fluences. The Suabian peasant still believes 
 that the railroad is a device of the devil, who is 
 entitled by contract to a tollage of one passenger 
 on every train ; he is in a constant state of anxiety 
 lest his turn may come on the next trip and 
 always wears a crucifix as the best means, so 
 far as his own person is concerned, of cheating 
 the devil of his due. As the Church has uni- 
 formly consigned great inventors to the infernal 
 regions, his Satanic Majesty could have never 
 had any lack of ingenious wits among his sub- 
 jects capable of advising him in such matters. 
 
 An important consideration, which did not 
 disturb the minds of mediaeval jurists, nor stay 
 the hand of strictly retributive justice, is the 
 fact, now generally admitted, that crimes, like 
 all other human actions, are subject to certain 
 fixed laws, which seem to some extent to remove 
 them from the province of free will and the 
 power of individual determination. Professor 
 Morselli has shown statistically that suicide, 
 which we are wont to consider a wholly volun- 
 tary act, is really dependent upon a great variety
 
 230 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 of circumstances, over which man has no control : 
 climate, seasons, months, days, state of crops, 
 domestic, social, political, financial, economical, 
 geographical and meteorological conditions, sun, 
 moon, and stars all work together, impelling 
 him to self-destruction or keeping him from it. 
 Suicide increases when the earth is in aphelion, 
 and decreases when it is in perihelion. Race 
 and religion are also important factors in ag- 
 gravating or mitigating the suicidal tendency, 
 Germans and Protestants being most, and 
 Semitic nations and Mohammedans, including 
 those of Aryan and African blood, being least 
 addicted to it. Suicide is, in fact, the resultant 
 of a vast number of complicated and far-reaching 
 forces, which we can neither trace nor measure, 
 and of which the victims themselves are for the 
 most part unconscious. To a very considerable 
 degree, it is a question of environment in the 
 broadest sense of the term; "an effect," says 
 Morselli, " of the struggle for existence and of 
 human selection, working according to the laws 
 of evolution among civilized peoples." What 
 is proved to be true of self-slaughter is equally 
 so of murder and every other crime. 
 
 An additional reflection, that " must give us 
 pause " in the presence of crime, is that some 
 of the chief causes operating to produce the 
 manifold evils afflicting society and threatening 
 to subvert it, are due in a great measure to the 
 present egoistic organization of our social and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 231 
 
 industrial system, the selfish and unscrupulous 
 power of wealth directed and stimulated by 
 superior intelligence and energy, on the one 
 hand, and the brute forces of ignorance driven 
 to despair by the disheartening and debasing 
 pressure of poverty, on the other hand, arrayed 
 against each other in fierce and bitter conflict. 
 Much of the individual viciousness, which 
 society is required to punish, springs directly 
 from the unjust and injurious conditions of life, 
 which society itself has created. It is the per- 
 ception of this fact that disturbs the conscience, 
 puzzles the will, and palsies the arm of the 
 modern law-giver and executor of justice. 
 
 Mediaeval legislators were not restrained by 
 any scruples of this sort; they regarded the 
 criminal, both human and animal, as the sole 
 author of the crime, ascribing it simply to his 
 own wickedness and never looking beyond the 
 mere actual deed to the social influences, psychi- 
 cal and physical characteristics and inherited 
 qualities, that impelled him with irresistible force 
 to do iniquitous things. This was doubtless a 
 very narrow, superficial and utterly unphiloso- 
 phical view of human action and responsibility ; 
 the danger now-a-days lies in the opposite ex- 
 treme, in the tendency to pity the vicious indi- 
 vidual as the passive product and commiserable 
 victim of unfortunate conditions, and while en- 
 gaged in the laudable attempt to improve these 
 conditions by working out broad and benevolent
 
 232 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 plans of permanent relief and reformation for 
 the future amelioration of society, to relax penal- 
 ties and to fail in providing by sufficiently 
 stringent measures for its present security. 
 Tribunals have only to do with individual 
 criminals as their conduct affects the general 
 welfare. In what manner their characters have 
 been formed by ancestral agencies and other 
 predispositions may be an interesting study to 
 the psychologist and the sociologist, but does 
 not concern the judge or the jurist in the dis- 
 charge of their official functions. The problem 
 of crime is therefore a very simple one, so far 
 as the criminal lawyer has to deal with the con- 
 crete case, but very complex, when we look 
 beyond the overt act to its genesis in the life of 
 the race. The proper administration of penal 
 justice is weakened and defeated by mixing itself 
 up with psycho-pathological inquiries wholly 
 foreign to it. 
 
 It is a curious coincidence that the theory of 
 evolution, in its application to man's free agency, 
 should arrive at essentially the same conclusion 
 as the theology of Augustine and Calvin. Pre- 
 destination, which the suffragan of Hippo and 
 the Genevan divine attributed to the arbitrary 
 decrees of God, evolution traces to the influences 
 of heredity upon individuals, predetermining 
 their bodily and mental constitutions. There is, 
 however, a wide difference between these two 
 doctrines in their workings. From the clutch
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 233 
 
 of a deity " willing to show his wrath and to 
 make his power known," no man can by any 
 effort of his own effect his escape. Against this 
 imperious and general sentence of damnation no 
 process of development, no upward striving, no 
 individual initiative can be of any avail. Evolu- 
 tion, on the contrary, promises a gradual release 
 from low ancestral conditions the original sin 
 of the theologians and opens up to the race a 
 way of redemption, not only through natural 
 selection and spontaneous variations resulting in 
 higher and nobler types of mankind, but also 
 through the modification of inherited traits by 
 careful breeding, thorough discipline and the 
 conscious and constant endeavour of every human 
 being to improve and perfect himself. Salva- 
 tion through the " election of grace " is by no 
 means identical w-ith salvation through the " sur- 
 vival of the fittest." The righteousness of those 
 whom God has chosen as " the vessels of mercy 
 whom he had afore prepared unto glory," may 
 be and probably is "as filthy rags " ; evolution- 
 ary science, on the contrary, recognizes and 
 appreciates redeemable qualities by select- 
 ing, strengthening and propagating them and 
 by this means aims ultimately to redeem the 
 world. It imposes upon each man the duty and 
 necessity of working out his own salvation, not 
 with fear and trembling at the prospect of meet- 
 ing an angry deity, but with hope and cheerful- 
 ness, knowing that the beneficent forces of nature
 
 234 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 are working in him, as in all forms of organic 
 life, in obedience to the laws of development, 
 towards the goal of his highest possible perfec- 
 tion by gradually eliminating the heirloom of 
 the beast and the savage, and letting the instincts 
 of the tiger and the ape slowly die within him. 
 "The best man," said Socrates, "is he who 
 seeks most earnestly to perfect himself, and the 
 happiest man is he who has the fullest conscious- 
 ness that he is perfecting himself." This utter- 
 ance of the Athenian sage expresses the funda- 
 mental principle of the ethics of evolution, 
 according to which there can be no greater sin 
 than the neglect of self-culture, holding, as it 
 does, in the province of science a place corre- 
 sponding in importance to that \vhich the un- 
 pardonable sin against the Holy Ghost holds in 
 the province of theology. No one is blamable 
 for inheriting bad tendencies; but every one is 
 blamable for not striving to eradicate them. If 
 evil impulses prove to be irresistible, then society 
 must step in and render them harmless by de- 
 priving of life or liberty the unfortunate victims 
 of such propensities. 
 
 Again, if the mental and moral qualities of 
 the lower animals differ from those of man, not 
 in kind, but only in degree, and the human 
 mammal is descended from a stock of primates, 
 to which apes and bats belong, and dogs and 
 cats and pigs are more remotely akin, it is dif- 
 ficult to determine the point at which moral and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 235 
 
 penal responsibility ceases in the descending, 
 or begins in the ascending scale of being. That 
 beasts and birds and even insects commit acts 
 of violence, which in human agents would be 
 called crimes, and which spring from the same 
 psychical causes and, as we have shown in 
 another work (Evolutionary Ethics and Animal 
 Psychology. New York : D. Appleton and 
 Co.; London: William Heinemann, 1898), are 
 punished by the herd, the flock or the swarm 
 in a more or less judicial manner, is undeniable. 
 The zoopsychologist Lacassagne divides the 
 criminal offences of animals into six classes or 
 categories, the ground of the classification being 
 the motives which underlie and originate them. 
 The lowest or most rudimentary motive to crime 
 in both man and beast is hunger, the operation 
 of which is seen in the spectacle of one savage 
 killing another in order to get sole possession 
 of a wild beast slain by them in common, and 
 in the ferocity of two dogs fighting over a bone. 
 Perhaps the great majority of crimes afflicting 
 society at the present time have their origin in 
 this source. Next to the desire of the individual 
 to preserve himself comes the desire to preserve 
 his kind; this motive is commonly considered 
 a more generous impulse and is praised as par- 
 ental affection. This earliest and most primitive 
 of altruistic emotions is exceedingly strong in 
 the lower animals, especially in those whose off- 
 spring are comparatively helpless in infancy, as
 
 236 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 is the case with all species of monkeys, and 
 manifests itself not only in tender care of the 
 young, but also in theft, robbery, and other acts 
 of violence committed for their sake. The wanton 
 love of destruction characterizes both beasts and 
 men ; there are roughs and vandals among the 
 former as well as among the latter, who take 
 a malicious delight in doing injury to persons 
 and property. Vanity and the desire of " show- 
 ing off " play no small part in the wrongdoings 
 of apes and apish men and women. Other in- 
 centives to crime are ambition, sexual passion, 
 gregariousness, the concentrated egoism and 
 merciless brutality of a crowd even in the most 
 civilized communities, the outrages so recklessly 
 perpetrated by what a French jurist, M. Tarde, 
 calls " that impulsive and maniac beast, the 
 mob." It may be remarked, too, that the kinds 
 of criminal actions, which civilization tends to 
 diminish among men, domestication tends to 
 diminish among the lower animals. 
 
 If these statements be correct, why should not 
 animals be held penally responsible for their 
 conduct as well as human beings? There are 
 men apparently less intelligent than apes. Why 
 then should the man be capitally punished and 
 the ape not brought to trial ? And if the ape 
 be made responsible and punishable, why not the 
 dog, the horse, the pig, and the cat? In other 
 words, does evolutionary criminology justify the 
 judicial proceedings instituted by mediaeval courts
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 237 
 
 against animals or regard the typical human 
 criminal as having in this respect no supremacy 
 over the beast? Does modern science take us 
 back to the barbarities of the Middle Ages in 
 matters of penal legislation, and in abolishing 
 judicial procedure against quadrupedal beasts is 
 it thereby logically forced to stay the hand of 
 justice uplifted against bipedal brutes? The 
 answer to these questions is unhesitatingly 
 negative. Zoopsychology is the key to an- 
 thropopsychology and enables us to get a clearer 
 conception of the genesis of human crime by 
 studying its manifestations in the lower creation ; 
 we thus see it in the process of becoming, acquire 
 a more correct appreciation of its nature and 
 origin and learn how to deal with it more ration- 
 ally and effectively in bestial man. 
 
 Another point discussed by Plato and still 
 seriously debated by writers on criminal juris- 
 prudence is whether punishment is to be inflicted 
 quia peccatum est or ne peccetur; in other 
 words, whether the object of it should be retri- 
 butive or preventive. The truth is, however, 
 that both of these motives are operative and as 
 determining causes are so closely intermixed 
 that it is impossible to separate them. As the 
 distinguished criminalist, Professor Von Liszt, 
 has remarked one might as well ask whether a 
 sick man takes medicine because he is ill or in 
 order to get well. The penalty is imposed in 
 consequence of the commission of a crime and
 
 238 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 also for the purpose of preventing a recurrence 
 of it, and is therefore both retributory and re- 
 formatory. Punishment is defined by Laas as 
 " ethicized and nationalized revenge, exercised 
 by the state or body politic, which is alone im- 
 partial enough to pronounce just judgments and 
 powerful enough to execute them." Civiliza- 
 tion takes vengeance out of the hands of the 
 injured individual and delegates it to the com- 
 munity or commonwealth, which has been out- 
 raged in his person. The underlying principle, 
 however, is, in both cases, the same, and the idea 
 of justice, as administered by the community, 
 does not rise above that entertained by the aggre- 
 gate or average of individuals composing it. 
 
 The recent growth of sociology and especially 
 the scientific study of the laws of heredity thus 
 tend, by exciting an intelligent interest in the 
 psychological solution of such questions, to 
 render men less positive and peremptory in their 
 judicial decisions. The intellectual horizon is 
 so greatly enlarged and so many possibilities 
 are suggested, that it is difficult for conscien- 
 tious persons, strongly affected by these specula- 
 tions and honestly endeavouring to make an 
 ethical or penal application of them, to come to 
 a prompt and practical conclusion in any given 
 case. The voice of decision loses its magis- 
 terial sternness and 
 
 " the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 239 
 
 If it be true, as Mr. Galton affirms, that legal 
 ability is transmitted from father to son, criminal 
 proclivity may be equally hereditary, and the 
 judge and the culprit may have reached their 
 relative positions through a line of ancestral 
 influences, working according to immutable and 
 inevasible laws of descent. 
 
 Schopenhauer maintained the theory of 
 " responsibility for character," and not for 
 actions, which are simply the outgrowth and 
 expression of character. The same act may be 
 good or bad according to the motives from which 
 it springs. This distinction is constantly made 
 both in ethics and in jurisprudence, and deter- 
 mines our moral judgments and judicial deci- 
 sions. Yet the chief elements, which enter into 
 a person's character and contribute to its forma- 
 tion, lie beyond his control or even his conscious- 
 ness, and in many cases have done their work 
 before his birth. Responsibility for character 
 is equivalent to responsibility for all the in- 
 herited tendencies and prenatal influences, of 
 which character is the resultant, and leads at last 
 to the theological dogma of the imputation of 
 sin all the way back to Adam as the federal head 
 of the race, a doctrine which Schopenhauer 
 would be the first to repudiate. Besides, evil 
 propensities and criminal designs are recogniz- 
 able and punishable only when embodied in 
 overt acts. The law cannot deprive a man of 
 life or liberty because he is known to be vicious
 
 240 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 and depraved, although the police in the exer- 
 cise of its protective and preventive functions 
 and as a means of providing for the general 
 security, may feel in duty bound to keep a watch- 
 ful eye on him and to make an occasional raid 
 on the dens and " dives " haunted by him and 
 his kind. There are also instances on record, 
 in which it is impossible to trace the culpable act 
 to any marked corruption of character. 
 
 A rather remarkable illustration of this fact is 
 furnished by the trial of Marie Jeanneret, which 
 took place at Geneva in Switzerland in 1868 and 
 which deservedly ranks high among the causes 
 celebres of the present century, both as a legal 
 question and a problem of psycho-pathology. 
 [At the time when this trial occurred, the writer 
 directed attention to the peculiar and perplex- 
 ing features of the case in The Nation for 
 January 7, 1869, p. n.] Dumas in his novel 
 Le Comte de Monte Christo, describes the char- 
 acter and career of a young, refined and beauti- 
 ful woman, moving in the best circles of Parisian 
 society, and yet poisoning successively six or 
 seven members of her own family; but even the 
 most imaginative and audacious of French 
 romancers did not dare to delineate such crimin- 
 ality without ascribing it to some apparently 
 adequate motive. Madame de Villefort ad- 
 ministered deadly potions to her relatives under 
 the impulse of a morbidly intense maternal love, 
 which centred all her moral and intellectual
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 241 
 
 faculties on the idea of making her son the sole 
 heir to a large estate. Affection and social 
 ambition for her offspring incited her to the 
 murder of her kin. But the invention, which 
 created such a monster of sentimental depravity, 
 has been far surpassed in real life by the exploits 
 of Marie Jeanneret, a Swiss nurse, who took 
 advantage of her professional position to give 
 doses of poison to the sick persons confided to 
 her care, from the effects of which seven of them 
 died. 
 
 In the commission of this monotonous series 
 of diabolical crimes, the culprit does not seem to 
 have been animated either by animosity or 
 cupidity. On the contrary, she always showed 
 the warmest affection for her victims, and nursed 
 them with the tenderest care and the most 
 untiring devotion, as she watched the distressful 
 workings of the fatal draught ; nor did she derive 
 the slightest material benefit from her course of 
 conduct, but rather suffered considerable 
 pecuniary loss by the death of her patients. The 
 testimony of physicians and alienists furnished 
 no evidence of insanity, nor did she show any 
 signs of atavistic reversion, physiological 
 abnormity or hereditary homicidal bent. Mono- 
 maniacs usually act fitfully and impulsively; 
 but Marie Jeanneret always manifested the 
 coolest premeditation and self-possession, never 
 exhibiting the least hesitation or confusion, or 
 the faintest trace of hallucination, but answered 
 16
 
 242 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 with the greatest clearness and calmness every 
 question put by the president of the court. Even 
 M. Turrettini, the prosecuting attorney, in 
 presenting the case to the jury, was unable to 
 discover any rational principle on which to 
 explain the conduct and urge the conviction of 
 the accused; and after exhausting the common 
 category of hypotheses and showing the inade- 
 quacy of each, he was driven by sheer stress of 
 inexplicability to seek a motive in " I'espece de 
 volupte qu'elle eproircerait a commettre un 
 crime," or what, in less elegant, but more 
 vigorous Western vernacular, would be called 
 " pure cussedness." Not only was such an 
 explanation merely a circumlocutory confession 
 of ignorance, but it was wholly inconsistent with 
 the general character of the indictee. 
 
 Indeed, the persistent and pitiless perpetration 
 of this one sort of crime by this woman, under 
 circumstances which should have excited com- 
 passion in the hardest human heart, seems more 
 like the working of some baneful and irrepres- 
 sible force in nature, or the relentless operation 
 of a destructive machine, than like the voluntary 
 action of a free and responsible moral agent. 
 M. Zurlinden, the counsel for the defendant, 
 dwelt with emphasis upon this mysterious phase 
 of the case and thus saved his client from the 
 scaffold. The jury, after five hours' delibera- 
 tion, rendered a verdict of " Guilty, with ex- 
 tenuating circumstances," as the result of which
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 243 
 
 the accused was sentenced to twenty years' hard 
 labour. As a matter of fact, there were no cir- 
 cumstances of an extenuating character except 
 the utter inability of the jurors to discover any 
 motive for the commission of such a succession 
 of cold-blooded atrocities. 
 
 After fifteen years' imprisonment the convict 
 died. During this whole period of incarceration 
 she not only show-ed great intelligence and strict 
 integrity, but was also remarkably kind and 
 helpful to all with whom she came in contact. 
 She instructed her fellow-convicts in needle-work 
 and fine embroidery, loved to attend them in 
 sickness, and by her general influence raised 
 very perceptibly the tone of morals in the work- 
 house. If it be true, as asserted by Mynheer 
 Heymanns, one of the latest expounders of 
 Schopenhauer's ethics, that " a man is respons- 
 ible for his actions only so far as his character 
 finds expression in them, and is to be judged solely 
 by his character," what shall be done in cases 
 like the afore-mentioned, in which the criminal 
 conduct is exceptional, and so far from being 
 symptomatic of the general character stands out 
 as an isolated and ugly excrescence and appall- 
 ing abnormity ? According to this theory crime 
 is to be punished only when it is the natural 
 outgrowth and legitimate fruit of the criminal's 
 individuality and society is to be left unpro- 
 tected against all maleficence not traceable to 
 such an origin.
 
 244 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 There can be hardly any doubt that the Swiss 
 nurse was a toxicomaniac, and that she had 
 become infatuated with poisons, partly by watch- 
 ing their effects on her own system, and partly 
 by reading about their properties in medical and 
 botanical works, to the study of which she was 
 passionately devoted. Did not Mithridates, if 
 we may believe the statements of Galen, experi- 
 ment with poisons on living persons? Why 
 should she not follow such an illustrious ex- 
 ample, especially as she never hesitated to take 
 herself the potions she administered to others; 
 the only difference being that habit had made 
 her, like the famous King of Pontus, proof 
 against their venom. She often attempted 
 analyses of these substances, and in one instance 
 was severely burned by the bursting of a crucible, 
 in which she was endeavouring to obtain atro- 
 pine from atropa belladonna or deadly night- 
 shade. It was this terrible poison, which is 
 endowed with exceedingly energetic qualities and 
 is therefore used by physicians with extreme 
 precaution, that seems to have had an irresistible 
 fascination for her, growing into an insane desire 
 to discover and test its occult virtues. She had 
 read and heard of zealous scientists and illus- 
 trious physicians, who had experimented on 
 themselves and on their disciples, and become 
 the benefactors of mankind; why then should 
 she not adopt the same method in the pursuit of 
 truth and use for this purpose the physiological
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 245 
 
 material which her profession placed in her 
 hands? 
 
 However preposterous such reasoning on her 
 part may appear to us and however vaguely and 
 subconsciously the mental process may have 
 been carried on, it offers the only theory 
 adequate to explain all the facts and to account 
 for the almost incredible union of contradictory 
 traits in her character. The enthusiasm of the 
 experimenter overbore in her the native sym- 
 pathy of the woman. She observed the writh- 
 ings of her poisoned victims with as " much 
 delight " as Professor Mantegazza confesses he 
 felt in studying the physiology of pain in the 
 dumb animals "shrieking and groaning" on 
 his tormentatore. " The physiologist," says 
 Claude Bernard, "is no ordinary man. He is 
 a savant, seized and possessed by a scientific 
 idea* He does not hear the cries of suffering 
 wrung from racked and lacerated creatures, nor 
 see the blood which flows. He has nothing 
 before his eyes but his idea and the organisms, 
 which are hiding the secrets he means to dis- 
 cover." Marie Jeanneret was a fanatic of this 
 kind. She, too, was a woman possessed with 
 ideas as witches were once supposed to be pos- 
 sessed with devils. Had she prudently confined 
 her experiments to the torture of helpless ani- 
 mals, she might perhaps have taken rank in the 
 scientific world with Brachet, Magendie and 
 other celebrated vivisectors, and been admitted
 
 246 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 with honour to the Academy, instead of being 
 thrust ignominiously into a penitentiary. 
 
 The assertion as regards any supposed case of 
 madness, that " there's method in it," is 
 popularly assumed to be equivalent to a denial of 
 the existence of the madness altogether. But 
 psycho-pathology affords no warrant for such an 
 assumption. An individual, who commits 
 murder under the impulse of morbid jealousy, 
 pecuniary distress, social rancour, political or 
 scientific fanaticism, or any other form of mono- 
 mania, is not the less the victim of a mind 
 diseased because he shows rational forethought 
 in planning and executing the deed. His mental 
 faculties may be perfectly healthy and normal in 
 their operation up to the point of derangement, 
 from which the fatal act proceeds. Xo chain is 
 stronger than its weakest link ; and this is equally 
 true of physical and psychical concatenations. 
 Under such circumstances the sane powers of 
 the mind are all at the mercy of the one fault 
 and are made to minister to this single infirmity. 
 
 According to English law a man is irre- 
 sponsibly insane, when he has " such defect of 
 reason from disease of the mind as not to kno\v 
 the nature and quality of the act he was doing, 
 or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was 
 doing what was wrong." This definition is very 
 incomplete and covers only the most obvious 
 forms of insanity; perhaps in the great majority 
 of cases there is no "defect of reason" nor
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 247 
 
 " disease of mind " in the proper sense of these 
 terms, but only a disturbance of the emotions or 
 perversion of the will originating in physical 
 disorder. Besides, it is undeniable that animal 
 intelligence is capable of distinguishing between 
 right and wrong and of comprehending what 
 is punishable and what is not punishable. In 
 general when a dog does wrong, he knows that 
 he is doing wrong; and a monkey often takes 
 delight in doing what is wrong simply because 
 he knows it is wrong. If a monkey gets angry 
 and kills a child, he obeys the same vicious pro- 
 pensity that impels a brutal man to commit 
 murder. There is no greater " defect of reason " 
 in one case than in the other. Why then should 
 the monkey be summarily shot or knocked on the 
 head, and the man arrested, tried, convicted and 
 hanged by the constituted authorities? Simply 
 because such a public prosecution and execution 
 would not exert any influence whatever in pre- 
 venting infanticide on the part of other monkeys ; 
 if it could be shown that a formal trial of the 
 monkey would produce this salutary effect, then 
 it certainly ought not to be omitted. The recent 
 attempt to modify the English law so as to render 
 all " certifiably insane " persons irresponsible for 
 their actions, would result in the abolition of all 
 punishment for crime, since many physicians 
 regard every criminal as insane and would not 
 hesitate to certify their opinion to the proper 
 tribunal.
 
 248 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 It is no easy task now-a-days for penal legisla- 
 tion to keep pace with psychiatral investigation 
 and to adjust itself to the wide range and nice 
 distinctions of modern psycho-pathology ; nor is 
 it necessary to do so. Solus socialis suprema lex 
 esio. Society is bound to protect itself against 
 every criminal assault, no matter what its source 
 or character may be. This is the ultimate object 
 not only of the prison and the scaffold, but also 
 of all reformatories for juvenile offenders and 
 vagabonds, who by judicious correction and 
 instruction may perhaps be brought to amend 
 their ways and thus be prevented from becoming 
 a social danger by swelling the disorderly ranks 
 of the permanently criminal classes. If a person 
 proves to be unamenable to moral or penitential 
 measures and remains an incorrigible trans- 
 gressor, it is the duty of the community to set 
 him aside by death or by life-long durance. 
 Penal legislation does not aim primarily at the 
 betterment of the individual ; laws are enacted 
 not for the purpose of making men good and 
 noble, but solely for the purpose of rendering 
 them safe members of society. This is effected 
 by depriving the irremediably vicious of their 
 liberty and, if necessary, also of their life. 
 
 The pardoning power, too, must be exercised 
 with the utmost reserve and circumspection. The 
 state does not look upon public offences as sins 
 but as crimes. The introduction of the theo- 
 logical conception of delinquencies into the pro-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 249 
 
 vince of civil government has always been the 
 vice of hierarchies and has never failed to work 
 immense mischief by leading inevitably to im- 
 pertinent intermeddling with matters of con- 
 science and private opinion, putting a premium 
 on pretended repentance and like hypocrisies, 
 and converting the witness-box into a confes- 
 sional and the court of justice into a court of 
 inquisition. This has been uniformly the result 
 wherever a body of priests has become a body 
 of rulers, endowed with sovereignty in the 
 administration of secular affairs. 
 
 If it could be conclusively proved or even 
 rendered highly probable, that the capital 
 punishment of an ox, which had gored a man 
 to death, deterred other oxen from pushing with 
 their horns, it would be the unquestionable 
 right and imperative duty of our legislatures 
 and tribunals to re-enact and execute the old 
 Mosaic law on this subject. In like manner, 
 if it can be satisfactorily shown that the hang- 
 ing of an admittedly insane person, who has 
 committed murder, prevents other insane per- 
 sons from perpetrating the same crime, or tends 
 to diminish the number of those who go insane 
 in the same direction, it is clearly the duty of 
 society to hang such persons, whatever may be 
 the opinion of the alienist concerning their 
 moral responsibility. Nor is this merely a 
 hypothetical case or purely academical ques- 
 tion. It is a well-established fact, that the
 
 250 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 partially insane, especially those affected with 
 " moral insanity " or so-called " cranks," have 
 their intelligence intact, and are capable of 
 exercising their reasoning powers freely and 
 fully in laying their plans and in carrying out 
 their designs. Indeed, criminals of this class 
 are sometimes known to have entertained the 
 thought that they would be acquitted on the 
 ground of insanity, and have thereby been em- 
 boldened to do the deed; and it is by no means 
 impossible, but highly probable, that a belief 
 in the certainty of punishment would have acted 
 as an effective deterrent. A case of this kind 
 occurred in 1894 in England, where an inmate 
 of a lunatic asylum deliberately murdered a 
 lawyer, who was visiting the institution. The 
 murderer declared that he had no grudge against 
 his victim, but believed himself to be perse- 
 cuted in general and wished to call attention to 
 his wrongs by assassinating some official or 
 prominent person. His method of redress was 
 that of the ordinary anarchist ; and his confes- 
 sion that he would not have dared to commit 
 the act unless he had believed that as a certifi- 
 cated lunatic under confinement he ran no risk 
 of being hanged, illustrates the point in ques- 
 tion. There can be no doubt, for example, 
 that the execution of Guiteau for the assassina- 
 tion of Garfield has greatly lessened the dangers 
 of this kind to which the President of the 
 United States is exposed ; just as the swift and
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 251 
 
 severe punishment of the Chicago anarchists has 
 dampened the zeal and restrained the activity 
 of the fanatics, who labour under the delusion 
 that, in a free country, dynamite bombs are the 
 fittest means of disseminating reformatory 
 ideas and bringing about the social and political 
 regeneration of the world. 
 
 From this point of view it is hardly neces- 
 sary to remark upon the absurdity of Lom- 
 broso's assertion that the jurists, who formerly 
 condemned and punished animals, were more 
 logical and consistent than those who now pass 
 sentence of death on cretins like Grandi or 
 cranks (grafomani matteschi) like Passannante 
 and Guiteau (Archivio di Psichiatria. Torino, 
 1881, Vol. II. Fasc. IV.), since he utterly 
 ignores the preventive character and purpose of 
 judicial punishment and its practical utility in 
 checking the homicidal propensities of such 
 persons, whereas the criminal prosecution and 
 capital punishment of a pig for infanticide will 
 not have the slightest effect in preventing 
 other pigs from mangling and devouring little 
 children. 
 
 That animals might be deterred from doing 
 violence to men by putting one of their kind to 
 death and suspending its body as a scarecrow is 
 maintained by a distinguished writer in the first 
 half of the sixteenth century, Hierolymus 
 Rosarius, the nuntius of Pope Clement VII. to 
 the court of Ferdinand I., then King of Hun-
 
 252 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 gary, who states that in Africa crucified lions are 
 placed near towns, and that other lions, however 
 hungry they may be, are kept away through fear 
 of the same punishment : cujus pcena metu, 
 licet urgent fames, desinunt. He records also 
 that in riding from Cologne towards Diiren, he 
 and his companions saw in the vast forest two 
 wolves in brogans hanging on a gallows, just 
 like two thieves, as a warning to the rest of the 
 pack: " Et nos ab Agrippina Colonia Duram 
 versus equitantes in ilia vasta silva, vidimus 
 duos caligatos lupos non secus quam duos 
 latrones, furcas suspenses; quo similis pcencc 
 formidine a maleficio reliqui deterreantur." In 
 like manner the American farmer sets up a dead 
 hawk as a deterrent for the protection of his 
 hens. We may add that Rosarius entertained 
 a high opinion of the intelligence and moral 
 character of animals and wrote a book to prove 
 their frequent superiority to men in the use of 
 their rational faculties. This very clever and 
 original work entitled : Quod animalia bruta 
 scBpe ratione utantur melius homine, was first 
 published by Gabriel Naude at Paris in 1648 ; 
 an enlarged edition was issued by Ribow at 
 Helmstedt in 1728, with a dissertation on the 
 soul in animals. 
 
 In the class of ill-poised minds, yclept cranks, 
 just mentioned, the spirit of imitation is peculi- 
 arly strong and morbidly contagious. The 
 celebrated psychiater, Baron Von Feuchters-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 253 
 
 leben, in his treatise On the Diatetics of the 
 Soul, cites the case of a French soldier, who 
 shot himself in a sentry-box; soon afterwards, 
 several other soldiers took their lives in the 
 same manner and in the same place. Napoleon 
 I. ordered the sentry-box to be burned and thus 
 put an end to the suicides. A similar instance 
 is recorded by Max Simon in his Hygiene de 
 I' esprit, in which he states that a workman 
 hanged himself in the embrasure of a gate, and 
 his example was followed directly by a dozen 
 of his fellows, so that it was found necessary 
 to wall up the gate in order to stop this strange 
 epidemic. The same effect is produced by 
 popular romances, in which the hero or heroine 
 or both together dispose of themselves in this 
 way ; sometimes whole communities are thus 
 infected by a single work of fiction ; perhaps 
 the most notable case of this kind in modern 
 literature is the era of sentimentalism and 
 suicidism which followed the publication of 
 Goethe's Werther. It is well known, too, that 
 another class of sensational novels, the plots 
 of which consist in the development of criminal 
 intrigues, tend to promote crime by rendering it 
 fascinating and indicating an attractive and ex- 
 citing method of perpetrating it. We have a 
 recent and very striking instance of this kind 
 in the origin and evolution of the notorious 
 Dreyfus affair. In June 1893, a year and a half 
 before the arrest of Dreyfus, a novel entitled
 
 254 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 Les Deux Freres, by Louis Letang, appeared 
 in the Paris Petit Journal, the plot of which 
 may be concisely described as follows. A 
 young and capable officer, Captain Philippe 
 Dormelles, who holds a position of confidence 
 in the French department of war, is envied and 
 hated by two colleagues named Aurelien and 
 Daniel. Their enmity and jealousy finally be- 
 come so intense that they conspire to effect his 
 ruin by accusing him of selling to a foreign 
 power the secrets of the national defence. It is 
 arranged that a compromising letter imitating 
 the handwriting of Dormelles and addressed to 
 a foreign military attache shall be placed in the 
 secret archives, where it will fall into the hands 
 of the head of the department Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Alleward. Dormelles is arrested and 
 thrown into the prison Cherche-Midi, and at the 
 same time Daniel causes a violent article to be 
 inserted in a newspaper Le Vigilant, charg- 
 ing him with high treason, and seeking to excite 
 public opinion against him. This article con- 
 cludes with the false statement that a search in 
 Dormelles' department had led to the discover)' 
 of important documents referring to the fabrica- 
 tion of smokeless powder, and that thereupon 
 Dormelles had confessed his guilt. He is then 
 sentenced to the galleys, but his betrothed is 
 convinced of his innocence and finally succeeds 
 in detecting and exposing the forgeries. Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Alleward is arrested and com-
 
 Capital Punishment of Animals 255 
 
 mits suicide in prison, not with a razor like 
 Henry, but with a revolver. One scene in the 
 novel describes the appearance of a veiled lady 
 on the very spot near the Champs Elysees, 
 where the mysterious veiled lady is said to have 
 appeared to Esterhazy three years later and for 
 much the same purpose. The French minister of 
 war, Mercier, was forced to proceed against 
 Dreyfus by the Libre Patrole, which published 
 lies about his confession, as Le Vigilant did 
 about Domiciles. The only rational explana- 
 tion of this remarkable concurrence of events, 
 as they are narrated in the fiction and after- 
 wards occurred in fact, is that the method of con- 
 ducting the conspiracy against Dreyfus and the 
 possibility of accomplishing it were suggested 
 by Letang's story, although the conspirators 
 doubtless did not anticipate that the logic of 
 events would render the results of their false- 
 hoods and forgeries as fatal to them as they were 
 to their prototypes in the novel. Every 
 scoundrel is firmly convinced that he can pattern 
 after his precursors in villainy, avoid their mis- 
 takes and commit the same crime without in- 
 curring the same penalty. 
 
 That paroxysms of epilepsy, hysterics and 
 various forms of frenzy are contagious and may 
 be easily communicated to nervous persons, who 
 witness them, has been clearly proved. Vicious 
 passions obey the same law of imitation even in 
 a still higher degree than tender emotions and
 
 256 The Criminal Prosecution and 
 
 nervous diseases, and more than two centuries 
 ago the illustrious jurisconsult, Samuel Pufen- 
 dorf, laid down the general principle that he 
 who for the first time commits a crime liable to 
 spread by contagion and to become virulent, 
 should be punished with extreme severity, in 
 order that it may not infect others and create 
 a moral pestilence. 
 
 The hemp cure is always a harsh cure, especi- 
 ally where there is any doubt as to the offender's 
 mental soundness; but in view of 'the increasing 
 frequency with which atrocious and wilful 
 crime shelters itself under the plea of insanity 
 and becomes an object of misdirected sympathy 
 to maudlin sentimentalists, the adoption of 
 radical and rigorous measures in the infliction 
 of punishment were perhaps an experiment weH 
 worth trying. Meanwhile, let the psychiater 
 continue his researches, and after we have 
 passed through the present confused and peril- 
 ous period of transition from gross and brutal 
 mediaeval conceptions of justice to refined and 
 humanitarian modern conceptions of justice, we 
 may, in due time, succeed in establishing our 
 penal code and criminal procedure upon founda- 
 tions that shall be both philosophically sound 
 and practically safe.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 CONTAINING ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS
 
 A 
 
 TESTIMONIALES ET REASSUMPTUM 
 
 ANNO domini millesimo quingentesimo octuagesimo 
 septimo et die decima tertia mensis aprilis comparuit 
 in bancho actorum judicialium episcopatus Maurianne 
 honestus vir Franciscus Ameneti scindicus et procurator 
 procuratorioque nomine totius communitatis et parrochie 
 Sancti Julliani qui in causa quam pretendunt reassumere 
 prosequi aut de novo intentare coram reverendissimo 
 domino Maurianne episcopo et principe seu reverendo 
 domino generali ejus Vicario et Official! contra Animalia 
 ad formam muscarum volantia coloris viridis communi 
 voce appellata Verpillions seu Amblevins facit constituit 
 elegit et creavit certum ac legitimum procuratorem totius 
 dicte communitatis et substituit vigore sui scindicatus de 
 quo fidem faciet egregium Petremandum Bertrandi causi- 
 dicum in curiis civitatis Maurianne presentem et accep- 
 tantem ad fines coram eodem reverendissimo Episcopo 
 et ejus Vicario generali comparendi et faciendi quicquid 
 circa negotiis ejusdem cause spectat et pertinet et prout 
 ipse scindicus facere posset si presens et personaliter 
 interesset cum electione domicillii et ceteris clausulis 
 259
 
 260 Appendix 
 
 relevationis ratihabitionis et aliis opportunis suo jura- 
 mento firmatis subque obligatione et hypotheca bonorum 
 suorum et dicte communitatis que conceduntur in bancho 
 die et anno premissis. 
 
 ORDINATIO 
 
 Anno domini millesimo quinquagesimo octuagesimo 
 septimo et die sabatti decima sexta maii comparuerunt 
 judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali Maurianne 
 prefato Franciscus Ameneti conscindicus Sancti Julliani 
 cum egregio Petremando Bertrandi ejus procuratore pro- 
 ducens testimoniales constitutionis facte eidem egregio 
 Bertrandi die tertia decima aprilis proxime fluxi petit sibi 
 provideri juxta supplicationem nobis porrectam parte 
 scindicorum et communitatis Sancti Julliani exordiente 
 Divino primitus imploratoauxilio signatum Franciscus Faeti 
 contra Animalia bruta ad formam muscarum volantia 
 nuncupata Verpillions producens etiam acta et agitata 
 superioribus annis coram predecessoribus nostris maxime 
 de anno 1545 et die vicesima secunda mensis aprilis 
 unacum ordinatione nostra lata octava maii millesimo 
 quingentesimo octuagesimo sexto et ne contra Animalia 
 ipsis inauditis procedi videatur petunt sibi provideri de 
 advocate et procuratore pro defensione si quam habeant 
 aut habere possent dictorum Animalium se offerentes 
 ad solutionem salarii illis per nos assignandi. Inde et 
 nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne ne Animalia contra que 
 agitur indeffensa remaneant deputamus eisdem pro pro- 
 curatore egregium Anthonium Fillioli licet absentem cui 
 injungimus ut salario moderate attenta oblatione conquer- 
 entium qui se offerunt satisfacere teneatur et debeat ipsa
 
 Appendix 261 
 
 Animalia protegere et defendere eorumque jura et ne de 
 consilio alicujus periti sint exempta ipsis providemus de 
 spectabili domino Petro Rembaudi advocatum (sic) cui 
 similiter injungimus ut debeat eorum jura defendere 
 salario moderato ut supra. Quamquidem deputationem 
 mandamus eis notifficari et ipsis auditis prout juris fuerit 
 ad ulteriora providebitur. Quo interim visa per nos 
 quadam ordinatione fuit fieri certas processiones et alias 
 devotiones in dicta ordinatione declaratas quas factas 
 fuisse non edocetur ideo ne irritetur Deus propter non 
 adempletionem devotionum in ipsa ordinatione narratarum 
 dicimus ipsas devotiones imprimis esse fiendas per 
 instantes et habitatores loci pro quo partes agunt quibus 
 factis postea ad ulteriora procedemus prout juris fuerit 
 decernentes literas in talibus necessarias per quas 
 comittimus curato seu vicario loci quathenus contenta 
 in dicta ordinatione in prono ecclesie publice declarare 
 habeat populumque monere et exortari ut illas adimpleant 
 infra terminum tam breve quam fieri poterit et de ipsis 
 attestationem nobis transmittere. Datum in civitate 
 Sancti Johannis Maurianne die anno permissis. 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die trigesima mensis maii com- 
 paruerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali 
 Maurianne prefato honestus Franciscus Ameneti con- 
 scindicus jurat venisse cum egregio Petremando Bertrandi 
 ejus procuratore producit et reproducit supplicationem 
 nobis porrectam retroacta et agitata contra eadem Ani- 
 malia maxime designata in memoriali coram nobis tento
 
 262 Appendix 
 
 decima sexta mail literas eodem die curato Sancti Julliani 
 directas unacum attestatione signata Romaneti quaconstat 
 clerum et incolas dicti loci proposse satisfecisse contentis 
 in eisdem literis ad formam ordinis in ipsis designate 
 petit sibi juxta et in actis antea requisita provider! et alia 
 uberius juxta cause merita et inthimari egregio Fillioli 
 procuratori ex adverse. Hinc egregius Fillioli procurator 
 dictorum Animalium brutorum petit communicationem 
 omnium et singularum productionum ex adverse cum 
 termino deliberandi defendendi et participandi cum 
 domino advocate premisso. Indi et nos Vicarius 
 generalis Maurianne prefatus communicatione superius 
 petita concessa partibus premissis diem assignamus 
 sabatti proximi sexta instantis mensis junii ad ibidem 
 judicialiter coram nobis comparandum et tune per 
 dictum egregium Fillioli nomine quo supra quid voluerit 
 deliberare et defendere deliberandum et defendendum. 
 Datum in civitate Maurianne die et anno premissis. 
 
 R. D. GENERALI VICARIO ET OFFICIALI 
 EPISCOPATUS MAURIANJE 
 
 Divino primitus implorato auxilio humiliter exponunt 
 syndici totius communitatis seu parrochie Sancti Julliani 
 cseterique homines ac sua interesse putantes et infra- 
 scriptis adherere cupientes quod cum alias ob forte 
 peccata et caetera commissa tanta multitude bruti 
 animalis generis convoluntium vulgo tamen vocabulo 
 Amblevini seu Verpillion dicti per vineas et vinetum 
 ipsius parrochie accessisset damna quamplurima ibi per- 
 petrantis folia et pampinos rodendo et vastando ut ex 
 eis nulli saltern pauci fructus percipi poterant qui juri
 
 Appendix 263 
 
 cultorum satisffacere possint et quod magis et gravius 
 erat ilia macula ad futura tempora trahendo vestigia nulli 
 palmites fructus afferentes produci poterant illi autem 
 flagitio antecessores amputate viam credentes prout divina 
 prudentia erat credendum porrectis precibus adversus 
 eadem Animalia et in eorum defensoris constituti per- 
 sonam debitis sumptis informationibus ac aliis formali- 
 tatibus necessariis prestitis sententia seu ordinatio pro- 
 lata comperitur cujus et djvinae potentiae virtute praecibus 
 tamen et officiis divinis mediantibus illud flagitium et 
 inordinatus furor prefatorum brutorum Animalium cessa- 
 runt usque ad duos vel circa citra annos quod veluti 
 priscis temporibus rediere in eisdem vineis et vineto et 
 damna inextimabilia et incomprehensibilia afferre cep- 
 erunt ita ut pluribus partibus nulli fructus sperantur 
 percipi possetque in dies deterius evenire culpa forte 
 hominum minus orationibus et cultui divino vacantium 
 seu vota et debita non vere et integre reddentium que 
 tamen omnia divinae cognitioni consistit et remittenda 
 veniunt eo quod Dei arcana cor hominis comprehendere 
 nequit. 
 
 Nihilominus cum certum sit gratiarum dona diversis 
 diversimode fore collata hominibus et potissimum 
 ecclesiastico ordini ut in nomine Jesu et virtute ejus 
 sanctissime passionis possit in terris ligare solvere et 
 flectere iterum ad R. V. recurrentes prius agitata reas- 
 sumendo et quatenus opus fuerit de novo procedendo 
 petunt in primis procuratorem aut defensorem ipsis 
 Animalibus constitui ob defectum praecedentis vita functi 
 quo facto et ut de expositis legitime constet debeatis 
 inquisitiones et visitationes locorum fieri per nos aut alium 
 idoneum commissarium caeterasque formalitates ad haec 
 opportunas et requisitas exerceri ipso defensore legitime
 
 264 Appendix 
 
 vocato et audito nee non aliter prout magis equum visum 
 et compertum de jure extiterit procedere dignetur ad 
 expulsionem dictorum Animalium via interdicti sive 
 excommunicationis et alia debita censura ecclesiastica et 
 justa ipsius sanctas constitutiones ad quas et divinae 
 clementiae et mandatis suorum ministrorum se parituros 
 offerunt et submittunt omni superstitione semota quod si 
 stricta excommunicatione processum fuerit sunt parati 
 dare et prestare locum ad pabulum et escam recipiendos 
 ipsis Animalibus quemquidem locum exnunc relaxant et 
 declarant prout infra et alias jus et justitiam ministrari 
 omni meliori modo implorato benigno officio. 
 
 FRAN. FAETI 
 
 Ego subsignatus curatus Sancti Julliani attestor quo- 
 modo sacro die Penthecostes decima septima mensis 
 maij anno domini millesimo quingentesimo octuagesimo 
 septimo ego accepi de manibus sindicorum mandatum 
 exortativum sive ordinationem R di generalis Vicarii et 
 Officialis curie diocesis Maurianne datum in civitate 
 Sancti Johannis decima sexta mensis may anno quo 
 supra quod cum honore et reverentia juxta tenorem illius 
 die lune Penthecostes decima octava may in offertorio 
 magne misse parochialis populo ad divina audienda con- 
 gregato publicavi idem populum michi commissum ad 
 contritionem suorum peccaminum et ad devotionem juxta 
 meum posse et serie monui processiones missas obsecra- 
 tiones et orationes in predicto mandato contentas per tres 
 dies continues videlicet vicesima vicesima prima vicesima 
 secunda predict! mensis cum ceteris presbiteris feci in 
 quibus processionibus scindici cum parrochianis utriusque 
 sexus per majorem partem circuitus vinearum interfuerunt
 
 Appendix 265 
 
 deprecantes Dei omnipotentis dementia pro extirpatione 
 brutorum Animalium predictas vineas atque alios fructus 
 terre devastantium vulgariter nuncupatas (sic) Verpilions 
 seu Amblavins in predicto mandate mentionata sive 
 nominata in quorum fidem ad requisitionem dictorum 
 scindicorum qui hanc attestationem petierunt quam illis 
 in exonus mei tradidi hac die vicesima quarta may anno 
 quo supra. 
 
 ROMANET 
 
 Franciscus de Crosa Canonicus et Cantor ecclesie 
 
 cathedralis Sancti Johannis Maurianne in et tem- 
 
 poralibus episcopatus Maurianne generalis Vicarius et 
 
 Officialis dilecto sive vicario Sancti Julliani s in 
 
 domino. Insequendo ordinationem per nos hodie date 
 presentium latam in causa scindicorum Sancti Julliani 
 agentium contra Animalia bruta ad formam muscarum 
 volantia coloris viridis nuncupata Verpillions supplicata 
 per quam inter cetera contenta in eadem dictum et 
 ordinatum extitit devotiones et processiones fieri ordi- 
 natas per ordinationem latam ab antecessore nostro die 
 octava maii anni millesimi quingentesimi quadragesimi 
 sexti in eadem causa in primis et ante omnia esse fiendas 
 per instantes et habitatores dicti loci Sancti Julliani. 
 Igitur vobis mandamus et injungimus quathenus die 
 dominico Penthecostes in prono vestra ecclesie par- 
 rochialis contenta in dicta ordinatione declarare habeatis 
 populumque monere et extortari ut ilia adimpleant infra 
 terminum tam breve quod fieri poterit et de ipsis attesta- 
 tionem nobis transmittere. Tenor vero dicte ordinationis 
 continentis devotiones sequitur et est talis. 
 
 Quia licet per testes de nostri mandato et commis- 
 sarium per nos deputatum examinatos apparet Animalia
 
 266 Appendix 
 
 bruta contra que in hujusmodi causa parte prefatorum 
 supplicantium fuit supplicatum intulisse plura dampna 
 insupportabilia ipsis supplicantibus que tamen dampna 
 potius possunt attribuenda peccatis supplicantium deci- 
 mis Deo omnipotent de jure primitive et ejus ministris 
 non servientium et ipsum summum Deum diversimode 
 eorum peccatis non (sic) offendentium quibus causis 
 causantibus dampna fieri supplicantibus predictis non ut 
 fame et egestate moriantur sed magis ut convertantur 
 et eorum peccata deffluant ut tandem abundantiam 
 bonorum temporalium consequantur pro substentatione 
 eorum vite vivere et post hanc vitam humanam salutem 
 eternam habeant. Cum a principio ipse summus Deus 
 qui cuncta creavit fructus terre et anime vegetative 
 produci permiserit tarn substentatione vite hominum 
 rationabilium et volatilium super terrain viventium 
 quamobrem non sic repente procedendum est contra 
 prefata Animalia sic ut supra damnificantia ad fulmina- 
 tionem censurarum ecclesiasticarum Sancta Sede Apos- 
 tolica inconsulta sive ab eadem ad id potestatem haben- 
 tibus superioribus nostris sed potius recurrendum ad 
 misericordiam Dei nostri qui in quacumque hora in- 
 genuerit peccata propitius est ad misericordiam. Ipsi 
 quamobrem causis premissis et alliis a jure resultantibus 
 pronunciamus et declaramus inprimis fore et esse mo- 
 nendos et quos tenore presentium monemus et moneri 
 mandamus ut ad ipsum Dominum nostrum ex toto et 
 puro corde convertantur cum debita contrictione de pec- 
 catis commissis et proposito confitendi temporibus et 
 loco opportunis et ab eisdem de future abstinendi et de 
 cetero debite persolvendum Deo decimas de jure debitas 
 et ejus ministris quibus de jure sunt persolvende eidem 
 Domino Deo nostro per meritata sue sacratissime passio-
 
 Appendix 267 
 
 nis et intercessione Beate Marie Virginis et omnium 
 Sanctorum ejus humiliter exposcendo veniam et quibus- 
 cumque peccatis delictis et offensis contra ejus majes- 
 tatem divinam factis ut tandem ab afflictionibus pre- 
 fatorum Animalium liberare dignetur et ipsa Animalia 
 loca non it ... ipsis supplicantibus ceterisque christianis 
 transferre et al . . . secundem ejus voluntatem et aliter 
 
 exting 
 
 eisdem supplicantibus uno die dominico 
 
 in offertorio ut ipso 
 
 die dominico supplicantibus 
 
 per circuitum 
 
 vinearum ejusdem parrochie et per 
 
 loca cum aspersione aque benedicte pro effugandis prefatis 
 Animalibus tribus diebus immediate sequentibus signifi- 
 cationem et notificationem sic ut supra fiendas quibus pro- 
 cessionibus durantibus decantari et celebrari mandamus 
 tres missas altas ante sive post quamlibet earum proces- 
 sionum ad devot. . . cleri et populi quarum prima primo 
 die decantabitur de Sancto Spiritu cum orationibus de 
 
 Beata Maria Deus Deus qui contritorum et A 
 
 cunctis nos quesumus Domine mentis et carports etc. et 
 una pro defunctis secundo die decantatis de Beata Maria 
 Virgine cum orationibus Sancti Spiritus Beate Marie 
 Virginis illis Qui contritorum et pro deffunctis. In 
 eisdem processionibus supra fiendis jubemus in eadem 
 ecclesia genibus flexis dici et decantari integriter Vent 
 Creator Spiritus quo hymno sic finito et dicto verceleto 
 Emitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur etc. cum orationibus 
 Deits qui corda fidelium singulis diebus sic prout supra 
 fiat proces . . . decantando septem psalmos penitentiales 
 cum letaniis suffragii et orationibus inde sequentibus 
 mandamus moneri supplicantes prout supra ut in eisdem
 
 268 Appendix 
 
 missis processionibus et devotionibus sic ut supra fiendis 
 ad minus d. . de qualibet domo devote intersint dicendo 
 eorum Fidem catholicam et alias devotiones et orationes 
 
 cum fuerit humiliter et devote preces 
 
 et effundendo Domino Deo nostro ut per merita sue 
 sanctissime passionis et intercessionem Beatissime 
 Virginis Marie et omnium Sanctorum dignetur expellere 
 ipsa Animalia predicta a prefatis vineis ut de fructus 
 
 earumdem non corrodant nee et 
 
 ibidem supplicantes a cunctis alliis adversitatibus liberare 
 ut tandem de eisdem fructibus debite vivere possint et 
 eorum necessitatibus subvenire et semper in omnibusque 
 glorificare laudare eumdem Dominum et Redemptorem 
 nostrum et in eodem fidem et spem nostram totaliter 
 cohibenda a devastatione prefatarum vinearum et nos 
 liberare a cunctis alliis adversitatibus dummodo sic ut 
 supra ejus mandata servaverimus et hoc absque allia 
 fulminatione censurarum ecclesiasticarum quas distu- 
 limus fulminare donee premissis debite adimpletis et 
 alliud a prefatis superioribus nostris habuerimus in 
 mandatis literas quatenus expediat in exequutionem 
 
 omnium et singulorum premissorum decernentes 
 
 Post insertionem dicte ordina- 
 
 tionis dicti scindici Sancti Julliani petierunt sibi concedi 
 literas quas concedimus datas in civitate Sancti Johannis 
 Maurianne die decima sexta mensis maii millesimo 
 quingentesimo octuagesimo septimo. 
 
 Franciscus de Crosa Vic. s et Off. 5 gen." 5 Maurianne. 
 
 FAURE 
 
 Per eumdem R. D. Maurianne generalem Vicarium et 
 Officialem. 
 
 (locus sigilli.}
 
 Appendix 269 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die quinta mensis junii comparu- 
 erunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario general! Mauri- 
 anne Franciscus Ameneti consindicus Sancti Julliani 
 asserens venisse a loco sancti Julliani ad fines re- 
 mittendi in manibus egregii Anthonii Fillioli pro- 
 curatoris Animalium brutorum cedulam signatam 
 Rembaud producendam pro deffensione dictorum Ani- 
 malium quiquidem egregius Fillioli produxit realiter 
 eandem cedulam incohantem Approbando etc. signatam 
 Rembaud dicens concludens et fieri requirens pro ut in 
 eadem cedula continetur. Hinc et egregius Petre- 
 mandus Bertrandi procurator dictorum sindicorum 
 Sancti Julliani agentium petiit copiam dicte cedule. Inde 
 et nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne prefatus partibus 
 premissis diem assignamus veneris proximam duo- 
 decimam presentis mensis junii nisi etc. ad ibidem 
 coram nobis comparendum et tune per dictum egregium 
 Bertrandi nomine quo supra quid voluerit deliberare 
 deliberandum eidem concedendo copiam dicte cedule per 
 eum requisitam. Datum in civitate Sancti Johannis 
 Maurianne die et anno premissis. 
 
 COPIA CEDULE 
 
 Approbando et in quantum de facta in medium ad- 
 ducendo ea que hoc in processu antea facto fuerunt et 
 potissimum scedulam productam ex parte egregii Baud- 
 rici procuratoris Animalium signatam Claudius Morellus 
 egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator et eo nomine a
 
 270 Appendix 
 
 reverendo domino Vicario constitutus occasione tuen- 
 dorum ac deffendendorum Animalium de quibus hoc 
 
 in processo agitur ut in actis ad quse impugn 
 
 super relatio habeatur et brevibus agendo ac realiter 
 deffendendo excipit et opponit ac multum miratur de 
 hujusmodi processu tarn contra personas agentium quam 
 contra insolitum et inusitatum modum et formam pro- 
 cedendi de eo saltern modo quo hactenus processum fuit 
 maxime cum agitur de excommunicatione Animalium 
 quod fieri non potest quia omnis excommunicatio aut 
 fertur ratione contumaciae cap. primo et ibi Gr. De 
 sententiis excommunicationis lib. 6. at cum certum est 
 dicta animalia in contumacia constitui non posse quia 
 legitime citari non possunt per consequens via excom- 
 municationis Agentes uti non possunt nee debent eo 
 maxime quod Deus ante hominis creationem ipsa 
 Animalia creavit ut habetur Genesi ib. Producat terra 
 animam viventem in genere suo jumenta et reptilia et 
 bestias terre secondum species suas benedixitque eis dicens 
 crescite et multiplicamini et replete aquas man's avesque mul- 
 tiplicentur super terrain quod non fecisset nisi sub spe 
 quod dicta Animalia vita fruerentur turn quod ipse Deus 
 optimus maximus creator omnium Animalium tam 
 rationabilium quam irrationabilium cunctis Animalibus 
 suum dedit esse et vesci super terram unicuique secon- 
 dum suam propriam naturam certum est et potissimum 
 plantas ad hoc creavit ut animalibus deservirent est 
 enim ordo naturalis quod plante sunt in nutrimentum 
 
 Animalium et quedam in nutrimentum aliorum 
 
 et omnia in hominis. Genes: 9: ibi Quasi 
 
 olera virentia tradidi vobis omnia a Deo quod dicta 
 Animalia de quibus Adversantes conqueruntur modum 
 vivendi a legi ordinatum non videtur egredi turn quia
 
 Appendix 271 
 
 bruta sensu et usu rationis carentia que non secondum 
 legem divinam gentium canonicam vel civilem sed 
 secondum legem naturae primordialis qua Animalia 
 cuncta docuit vivere solo instinctu naturae vivunt et 
 ut ait Philosophus actus activorum non operantur in 
 
 patienti. turn quia jura naturalia sunt im- 
 
 mutabilia Sed naturalia Instit. : dejur natur. gent, et 
 civili. ergo cum dicta Animalia solo instinctu naturae 
 dicantur per consequens excommunicanda non veniunt. 
 Et quamvis dicta Animalia hominibus subjecta esse 
 dicantur ut habetur Ecclesiast: 17. ibi Posuit timorem 
 illius super omnem carnem et bestiarum ac volatilium non 
 idcirco adversus talia Animalia licet subjecta uti non de- 
 bent excommunicatione nee ullo modo veniunt petita 
 executioni mandanda saltern modo petito presertim cum 
 ratio et aequitas dicta Animalia non regat. Et licet juribus 
 divino antique civili et canonico promulgatum legitur 
 Qui seminat metet ut habetur Esai 37 ibi. In annoautem 
 tertio seminate et mettete et plantate vineas et commedite 
 fructum earum non tamen cequitur(wV) quin dicta Animalia 
 plantis non utantur quia sunt irrationabilia et carentia 
 sensu neque ea posse dicernere quae sunt usui hominum 
 destinata vel non certissimum est quia solo instinctu 
 nature ut supra dictum est vivunt non idcirco necesse 
 habent Agentes adversus dicta Animalia uti excommuni- 
 catione sed peccata eorum universus populus 
 
 presertim quem hujusmodi flagella affligunt et prose- 
 quuntur et poenitentiam agat exemplo Ninivitarum qui 
 ad solam vocem Jone prophete austeriter poenitentiam 
 egerunt ad mittigandam et placandam iram Dei. Jon. 3. 
 veniat populus et imploret misericordiam Dei optimi et sic 
 maximi ut sua sancta gratia et per merita sanctissimae 
 passionis excessum dictorum Animalium compessere et
 
 272 Appendix 
 
 refrenare dignetur et hoc modo dicta Animalia e vineis 
 ejicient et non eo modo quo procedunt. Quibus universis 
 consideratis evidentissime patet dicta Animalia e vitibus 
 seu e vineis ejicienda non esse attento quod solo instinctu 
 naturse vivunt et ita per egregium Anthonium Fillioli 
 eorumdem Brutorum legittimi actoris fieri instatur et ab 
 ipso petitur ipsum monitorium requisitum in quantum 
 concernit dicta Animalia revocari et annullari nee aliquo 
 modo consentiendo quod dictum monitorium eis con- 
 cedatur nee etiam aliqui visitationi vinearum ut est con- 
 clusum per Agentes in eorum supplicatione protestando 
 de omni nullitate et hoc omni meliori modo via jure ac 
 forma salvis aliis quibuscumque juribus ac derfentioni- 
 bus competentibus aut competituris humiliter implorato 
 benigno officio judicis. 
 
 PETRUS REMBAUDUS 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die duodecima mensis junii com- 
 paruerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali 
 Maurianne prefato egregius Petremandus Bertrandi 
 procurator dictorum Agentium petens alium terminum. 
 Hinc et egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator dictorum 
 Animalium petiit viam precludi parti quidquiam ulterius 
 deliberandi et producendi. Inde et nos Vicarius generalis 
 Maurianne prefatus partibus premissis diem assignamus 
 veneris proximam decimam nonam presentis mensis nisi 
 etc. ad ibidem judicialiter coram nobis comparendum et 
 tune per dictum Bertrandi nomine quo suppra quid 
 voluerit precise deliberare deliberandum. Datum Mau- 
 rianne die et anno premissis.
 
 Appendix 273 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die veneris decima nona mensis 
 junii preassignata comparuerunt judicialiter coram nobis 
 Vicarium generalem Maurianne prefato egregius Petre- 
 mandus Bertrandi procurator Sindicorum Sancti Julliani 
 Agentium producens cedulam incohantem Etiant si 
 cuncta et signatam Franciscus Fay dicens concludens et 
 fieri requirens pro ut et quemadmodum in eadem cedula 
 continetur. 
 
 Hinc et egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator dictorum 
 Animalium conventorum petiit copiam dicte cedulas cum 
 termino deliberandi et respondendi. 
 
 Inde et nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne prefatus 
 copia prepetita concessa partibus premissis diem assign- 
 amus veneris proximam vigessimam sextam hujus mensis 
 junii nisi etc. ad ibidem judicialiter coram nobis compar- 
 endum et tune per dictum Fillioli nomine quo supra 
 quid voluerit deliberare deliberandum. Datum Maurianne 
 die et anno premissis. 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die sabatti vigesima septima mensis 
 junii subrogata ob diem feriatum intervenientem com- 
 paruerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali prefato 
 Catherinus Ameneti consindicus Sancti Julliani jurat 
 venisse cum egregio Petremando Bertrandi ejus procura- 
 tore producens realiter cedulam signatam Fay dicens 
 concludens prout in eadem cedula continetur. Hinc 
 et egregius Fillioli procurator Animalium petens copiam 
 cedule cum termino deliberandi. Inde et nos Vicarius 
 18
 
 274 Appendix 
 
 prefatus copia prepetita concessa partibus premissis diem 
 assignamus sabbati proximi quartam instantis mensi jullii 
 nisi etc. ad ibidem judicialiter coram nobis comprehen- 
 dum est tune per dictum egregium Fillioli quid voluerit 
 deliberare deliberandum. Datum Maurianne die et anno 
 premissis. 
 
 COPIA CEDULvE 
 
 Etiamsi cuncta ante hominem sint creata ex Genesi 
 non sequitur laxas habenas concessas fore immo contra ut 
 
 ibidem colligitur et apud D in i. par. q. 26. ar. i. 
 
 et psal. 8. Corin. 5. hominem fore creatum ac constitutum 
 ut cceteris creaturis dominaretur ac orbem terrarum in 
 sequitate et justitia disponeret. Non enim homo contem- 
 platione aliarum creaturarum habet esse sed contra. Nee 
 reperitur illam dominationem circa bruta animantia ac 
 eorum respectu suscipere limitationem verum in divinis 
 cavetur omne genuflecti in nomine Jesu. 
 
 Sed cum circa materiam majores nostri satis scripserint 
 in actis reassumptis et nihil novi adductum ex adverso 
 inveniatur frustra resumerentur. Unde inherendo re- 
 sponsis spectabilis domini Yppolyti de Collo et postquam 
 constat fore satisfifactum ordinationi nihil est quod 
 impediri possit fines supplicates adversus Animalia de 
 quorum conqueritur ad quod concluditur ac justitiam 
 ministrari omni meliori modo implorato benigno officio. 
 
 FRANC FAETI 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die quarta mensis jullii comparuerunt 
 judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali Maurianne
 
 Appendix 275 
 
 prefato egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator dictorum 
 Animalium producens cedulam incohantem Licet multis 
 signatam Rembaudi dicens et concludens prout in eadem 
 cedula continetur hinc et egregius Petremandus Bertrandi 
 procurator dictorum Agentium petit copiam cedule cum 
 termino deliberandi. Inde et nos Vicarius generalis 
 Maurianne prefatus copia prepetita concessa partibus 
 premissis diem assignamus sabbati proximam undecimam 
 presentis mensis jullii nisi etc. ad ibidem judicialiter 
 coram nobis comparendum et tune per dictum egregium 
 Bertrandi nomine quo supra quid voluerit deliberare 
 deliberandum. Datum Maurianne die et anno premissis. 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso at die quarta jullii comparuerunt coram 
 nobis Vicario prefato egregius Petremandus Bertrandi 
 procurator Agentium petit alium terminum. Hinc et 
 egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator Conventorum in- 
 heret cedulatis suis et fieri petitis super quibus petit 
 justitiam sibi ministrari. Inde et nos Vicarius generalis 
 Maurianne prefatus partibus premissis diem assignamus 
 sabbati proximam decimam octavam presentis mensis 
 jullii nisi etc. ad ibidem judicialiter coram nobis com- 
 parendum et tune per dictum Bertrandi nomine quo 
 supra quid voluerit deliberare deliberandum. Datum 
 Maurianne die et anno premissis. 
 
 COPIA CEDULA 
 
 Licet multis in locis reperiatur hominem creatum misse 
 ut casteris Animalibus et creaturis dominaretur non
 
 276 Appendix 
 
 idcirco opus est ut Agentes adversus dicta Animalia 
 excommunicatione utantur sed via usitata et ordinaria 
 et praesertim ut dictum est quod dicta Animalia jus naturae 
 sequantur quod quidem jus nusquam immitatum (sic) re- 
 peritur nam jus divinum et naturale pro eodem sumuntur. 
 Can. i. dist. i. at jus divinum mutari non potest quod 
 est in preceptis moralibus et naturalibus per consequens 
 nee jus naturale mutari potest nam jus naturale manat ab 
 honesto nempe ac ratione immortali et perpetua, at ratio 
 jubet ut dicta Animalia vivant potissimum hiis nempe 
 plantis que ad usum dictorum Animalium videntur creata 
 ut supra dictum est ergo Agentes nulla ratione debent 
 uti via excommunicationis. Igitur ne in causa ulterius 
 progrediatur potissimum cum cedula pro parte Sindi- 
 corum totius communitatis Sancti Julliani producta 
 signata Fran: Faeti. nullam penitus mereatur respon- 
 sionem obstante quod nihil novi in dicta cedula pro- 
 positum comperitur etiam quod contentis cedulse parte 
 gregii (egregii) Anthonii Fillioli procuratorio nomine 
 dictorum Animalium producte mimime sit responsum 
 idcirco cum omnia que videbantur adducenda ex parte 
 dictorum Animalium adducta et proposita fuerunt ut 
 ample patet in dicta cedula superius producta signata : P. 
 Rembaudus. ad quam impugnatus semper relatio habeatur 
 non igitur alia ex parte dictorum Animalium adducenda 
 nee proponenda videntur presertim ut dictum est quod 
 ratio et equitas dicta Animalia non regat quapropter 
 egregius Anthonius Fillioli nemine dictorum Animalium 
 suppra relatorum suoe cedule et fieri recuisitis inhcerendo 
 concludit super eis jus dici et deffiniri et justiciam sibi 
 in hujusmodi causa adversam fieri et promulgari implorans 
 benignum officium ornni melliori modo. 
 
 P. REMBAUDUS
 
 Appendix 277 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die decima octava mensis jullii com- 
 paruerunt r judicialiter coram nobis Vicario prefato 
 egregius Petremandus Bertrandi procurator Agentium 
 petens alium terminum. Hinc et egregius Fillioli pro- 
 curator dictorum Animalium petit viam precludi parti 
 quidquam ulterius articullandi et deducendi et inherendo 
 suis cedulatis petit sibi justitiam ministrari. Inde et 
 nos vicarius general is Maurianne prefatus de consensu 
 procuratorum dictarum partium ipsis partibus diem assign- 
 amus primam juridicam post messes ad ibidem coram 
 nobis comparendum et tune per dictum egregium 
 Bertrandi nomine quo suppra quid voluerit precise 
 deliberare deliberandum. 
 
 MEMORIALE 
 
 Anno premisso et die veneris vigesima quarta men- 
 sis juli comparuerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario 
 generali Maurianne prefato egregius Petremandus Ber- 
 trandi procurator Sindicorum Agentium produxit testi- 
 moniales sumptas per communitatem Sancti Julliani 
 congregatam coram visecastellano Maurianne contin- 
 entes declarationem loci quern offerunt relaxare et 
 assignare eisdem Animalibus pro eorum pabulo quathe- 
 nus indigent ad formam earumdem testimonialium 
 signatarum Prunier adversus quas petit adverse viam 
 precludi quicquam opponendi et exipiendi et deffendendi 
 quominus dicta Animalia devastantia non debeant arceri 
 ambigi cogi et in virtute sancte Dei obedientice vineta 
 loci predicti Sancti Julliani relinquere et in locum
 
 278 Appendix 
 
 assignatum accedere et divertire ne deimpceps (deinceps) 
 officiant eisdem vineis que sunt usui humano perneces- 
 sarias et alias ulterius super cause exigentia provider! 
 benignum officium R. D. V. implorando et ita intimari 
 egregio Fillioli procurator! ex adverse. 
 
 Quiquidem egregius Fillioli procurator dictorum 
 Animalium petiit copiam et communicationem dictarum 
 testimonialium cum termino deliberandi et deffendendi. 
 
 Inde et nos Vicarius generalis Maurianne prefatus 
 copia et communicatione prepetitis concessis partibus 
 premissis diem assignamus primam juridicam post ferias 
 messium proxime venturam ad ibidem judicialiter coram 
 nobis comparendum et hinc per dictum egregium Fillioli 
 nomine quo suppra quid voluerit deliberare deliberandum. 
 Datum Maurianne die et anno premissis. 
 
 EXTRAICT DU REGESTRE DE LA CURIALLITE 
 DE SAINCT JULLIEN 
 
 Du penultiesme jour du moys de juing mil cinq cent 
 huictante sept. 
 
 Ont comparu pardevant Nous Jehan Jullien Depupet 
 notaire ducal et Vichastellain pour son Altesse au lieu de 
 Sainct Jullien et Montdenix honnestes Francoys et 
 Catherin Aimenetz conscindicz dudict lieu maistres 
 Jehan Modere Andre Guyons Pierre Depupet notaires 
 ducaulx maistre Reymond Thabuys honnestes Claude 
 Charvin Jehan Prunier Claude Fay Frangys Humbert et 
 Vuilland Duc.oonseilliers dudict lieu avec des manantz 
 et habitantz dudit lieu les deux partyes les troys faisantz 
 le tout tous assembles au son de la cloche au Parloir 
 damon place publicque dudit lieu de Sainct Jullien au
 
 Appendix 279 
 
 conseil general suyvant la publication d'icelluy faicte 
 cejoudhuy mattin a lyssue de la parocchielie dudit lieu 
 et au lieu ce fere accoustume par Guilliaume Morard 
 metral dudict lieu ce a Nous rapportant disantz les 
 susnommez scindicz comme au proces pas eulx au nom 
 de ladicte communaulte intenre et poursuyvy centre les 
 Animaulx brutes vulgairement appelez Amblevins par- 
 devant le Seigneur Reverendissime Evesque et Prince de 
 Maurianne ou son Official est requis et necessayre syvant 
 le conseil a eulx donne par le sieur Fay leur advocat de 
 ballier ausdictz Animaulx place et lieu de souffizante 
 pasture hors les vigniables dudict lieu de Sainct Jullien 
 et de celle qu'il y en puissent vivre pour eviter de manger 
 ny gaster lesdictes vignes. A ceste cause ont tous les 
 susnommes et aultres y assembles delibere leur offrir la 
 place et lieu appelle la Grand Feisse ou elle se treuvera 
 souffizante pour les pasturer et que le sieur advocat et 
 procureur diceulx Animaux se veuillent contempter 
 laquelle place est assize sur les fins dudict Sainct Jullien 
 audessus du village de Claret jouxte la Combe descend- 
 ant de Roche noyre passant par le Crosset du levant la 
 Combe de Mugnier du couchant ladicte Roche noyre 
 dessus la Roche commencant a la Gieclaz du dessoubz 
 laquelle place sus coufinee centient de quarent a cin- 
 quante sesteries ou environ peuplee et garnye de plusieurs 
 espresses de boes plantes et feuillages comme foulx 
 allagniers cyrisiers chesnes planes et aultres arbres et 
 buissons oultre lerbe et pasture qui y est en asses bonne 
 quantitd a laquelle les susnommes au nom de ladicte 
 communaulte Ion offre ny prendre chose que ce soyt moing 
 permettre a leur sceu y es tre prins et emporte chose que 
 soyt dans lesdictz confins soyt par gens ou bestes saufz 
 toutteffoys que ou le passaige des personnes y seroyt neces-
 
 280 Appendix 
 
 sayre a quelque lieu ou endroit ou Ion ne puisse passer 
 par ledict lieu sans fere aulcung prejudice a la pasture 
 desdicts Animaulx comme aussi dy pouvoir tirer mynes 
 de colleurs et aultres si alcune en y a dequoy lesdictz 
 Animaulx ne se peuvent servir pour vivre et par ce que 
 le lieu est une seure retraicte en temps de guerre ou 
 aultres troubles par ce quelle est garnye des fontaynes 
 qui aussi servira ausdictz Animaulx se reservent sy 
 pouvoir retirer au temps susdict et de necessite et de 
 leur passer contract de ladicte piece aux conditions sus- 
 dictes tel que sera requis et en bonne forme et vallable a 
 perpetuyte a tel sy que ou le Sieur Advocat et Procureur 
 desdicts Animaulx ne ce contenteroyent de ladite place 
 pour la substentation et vivre diceulx animaux visitation 
 prealablement faicte si elle y exchoict de leur en baillier 
 davantage allieurs. Et de laquelle deliberation les 
 susnommes Scindics conselliers et aultres Nous ont 
 requis acte leur octroyer que leur avons concede audict 
 lieu du Parloir damont place publique dudict Sainct 
 Jullien en presence de Pierre Reymond de Montriond 
 Urban Geymen de Sainct Martin de la Porte et de 
 Janoct Poinct de la paroisse de Montdenix tesmoingtz 
 a ce requis et a ce dessus assistantz les an et jour que 
 dessus. 
 
 L. PRUMIER 
 curial 
 
 MEMORIALE CONTINUATIONS 
 
 Anno premisso et die undecima mensis augusti com- 
 paruerunt im banco actorum judicialium episcopatus 
 Maurianne procuratores ambarum partium qui citra 
 prejudicium jurium ipsarum partium prorogaverunt et
 
 Appendix 281 
 
 continuaverunt assignationem datam ipsis partibus usque 
 ad vigesimam presentis mensis augusti. Datum die et 
 anno premissis. 
 
 ALIA CONTINUATIO 
 
 Anno premisso et die vigesima mensis augusti com- 
 paruerunt in eodem bancho egregius Petremandus 
 Bertrandi et Anthonius Fillioli procuratores partium 
 lictigantium quiquidem de consensu eorumdem et citra 
 prejudicium jurium partium et actento transitu armiger- 
 orum prorogaverunt assignationem ad hodie cadentem 
 usque ad diem jovis proximam vigesimam septimam 
 hujus mensis Augusti. Datum Maurianne die et anno 
 premissis. 
 
 MEMORIALE REASSOMPTIONIS 
 
 Anno premisso et die jovis vigesimam septimam 
 augusti comparuerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario 
 prefato procuratores ambarum partium quiquidem citra 
 derogationem jurium ipsarum partium prorogaverunt et 
 continuationem ad hodie cadentem usque ad diem jovis 
 proximam tertiam instantis mensis septembris. Datum 
 die et anno premissis. 
 
 MEMORIALE AD JUS 
 
 Anno premisso et die tertia mensis septembris com- 
 paruerunt judicialiter coram nobis Vicario generali 
 Maurianne prefato egregius Anthonius Fillioli procurator 
 Animalium brutorum qui visis testimonialibus productis 
 parte dictorum Agentium continentibus assignationem
 
 282 Appendix 
 
 loci quern obtulerunt relaxare et assignare dictis Animal- 
 ibus pro eorum pabulo dicit eumdem locum non esse 
 sufficientem nee idoneum pro pabulo dictorum Animal- 
 ium cum sit locus sterilis et nullius redditus. Et ampliando 
 omnia et quecumque agitata in presenti processu parte 
 dictorum Animalium petit Agentes repelli cum expensis 
 et jus sibi ministrari. Hinc et egregius Petremandus 
 Bertrandi procurator Scindicorum Sancti Julliani Agent- 
 ium dicit locum destinatum et oblatum esse idoneum 
 plenum virgultis et parvis arboribus prout ex testimo- 
 nialibus oblationis constat et latius constare quathenus 
 opus sit offert inherens suis conclusionibus petit jus dici 
 et ordinari ac pronunciari. Inde et nos Vicarius generalis 
 Maurianne prefatus mandamus nobis remitti acta ad fines 
 providendi prout juris assignando partes ad ordinandum. 
 Datum in civitate Sancti Johannis Maurianne die et anno 
 premissis. 
 
 ORDINATIO IN CAUSA SCINDICORUM SANCTI 
 JULLIANI SUPPLICANTIUM EX UNA 
 
 contra Animalia bruta ad formam muscarum volantia 
 colons viridis Supplicata 
 
 Visis actis dictorum Agendum signanter primo me- 
 moriali tento in eadem causa sub die vigesima secunda 
 mensis aprilis anni 1545 coram spectabili domino Francisco 
 Bonivardi jurium doctori cedula producta parte egregii 
 Petri Falconis procuratoris dictorum Animalium in- 
 cipiente Ut appareat etc. signata Claudius Morellus 
 tenore supplicationis porrecte parte dictorum Agen- 
 dum tenore monitorii abjecti desuper ipsa supplicatione
 
 Appendix 283 
 
 sub die 25 aprilis anni predict! millesimi quingentesimi 
 quadragesimi quinti signati Daprilis ordinatione lata in 
 eadem causa sub die duodecima mensis junii ejusdem 
 anni testimonialibus visitationis facte per egregium 
 Matheum Daprili signatisZ>a/r/// cedula producta nom- 
 ine ipsorum Animalium incipiente Visitatio et signata 
 Claudius Morellus allia cedula producta parte dictorum 
 Agentium incipiente Etsi rationes etc. signata Petrus de 
 Collo tenore ordinationis late in eadem causa sub die 
 sabatti octava mensis maii anni 1546 signate Michaelis 
 memorial! reassumptionis tento sub die tresdecima mensis 
 aprilis anni presentis 1587 ordinatione lata in eadem 
 causa per reverendum dominum Franciscum de Crosa 
 antecessorem nostrum sub die decima sexta mensis maii 
 anni presentis supplicatione porrecta parte dictorum 
 Agentium signata Franciscus Faeti litteris obtentis 
 virtute dicte ordinationis sub die decima sexta dicti 
 mensis attestatione signata Romanet sub die 24 ejusdem 
 mensis maii cedula producta pro parte dictorum 
 Animalium incipiente Approbando etc. signata Petrus 
 Rembaudus allia cedula producta parte Agentium 
 signata Franciscus Faeti incipiente Etiam si cuncta etc. 
 allia cedula producta pro parte Animalium incipiente 
 Licet multis etc. signata Petrus Rembaudus memoriali 
 tento sub die vicesima quarta mensis jullii proxime fluxi 
 testimonialibus signatis Prunier sumptis coram Vice- 
 castellano Maurianne sub die penultima mensis junii 
 anni presentis continentibus declarationem loci quern 
 dicti Agentes obtulerunt relaxare pro pabulo dictorum 
 Animalium memoriale ad jus tento coram eodem 
 domino Vicario antecessore nostro sub die tertia mensis 
 septembris proxime fluxi ceterisque videndis diligenter 
 consideratis.
 
 284 Appendix 
 
 Nos-Vicarius generalis Maurianne subsignatus ante- 
 quam ad diffinitivam procedamus dicimus et ordinamus 
 in primis et ante omnia esse inquirendum super statu 
 
 loci oblati p 
 
 quern locum 
 
 visitandum 
 
 mensem ut f. . . . . 
 
 et nobis rem 
 
 fuerit provid 
 
 Mermetus vis 
 
 generalis 
 
 in civitate S 
 
 die decima 
 
 anno domini 
 
 octuagesimo sep 
 
 Petremandi Bertr 
 
 dictorum Scind 
 
 et egregii 
 
 dictorum Animal. 
 
 ordinationem 
 
 acceptandum 
 
 facit die et 
 
 (pro visitatione III flor) 
 
 locus sjgilli. 
 
 Solverunt Scindici Sancti Julliani incluso processu 
 Animalium sigillo ordinationum et pro copia que com- 
 petat in processu dictorum Animalium omnibus inclusis 
 XVI flor. 
 
 Item pro sportulis domini Vicarii III flor 20 decem- 
 bre 1587.
 
 Appendix 285 
 
 Published by Leon Menebrea in the appendix to his 
 treatise : De I'Origine, de la forme et de V esprit des 
 jugements rendus au Moyen-age contre les Animaux, 
 Chambery, 1846. Cf. M'emoires de la Societe Royale 
 Academique de Savoie, Tome xn. pp. 524-57, where it 
 first appeared. 
 
 According to M. J. Desnoyers (Recherches sur la 
 coutume d? exerciser et dexcommunier les insectes et autres 
 animaux nuisibles a F agriculture, p. 15), it is still the 
 custom, in Provence, Languedoc, le Bordelais, and other 
 provinces of France, for the peasants to ask the country 
 curates for prayers, sprinklings with holy water, con- 
 secrated boughs, and extraordinary processions, for the 
 purpose of expelling noxious insects from the vineyards 
 and warding off disease from the grapes and the silk- 
 worms. These ceremonies are accompanied with ad- 
 jurations and maledictions. In Protestant lands official 
 days of fasting and prayer are supposed to produce the 
 same results. 
 
 The form of exorcism given by an Antwerp canon, 
 Maximilian d'Eynatten, in his Manuale Exorcismorum, is 
 as follows : " Exorcizo et adjuro vos, pestiferi verrnes, 
 per Deum patrem omnipotentem >, et per Jesum 
 Christum J< filium ejus Dominum nostrum, et Spiritum 
 Sanctum J< ab utroque procedentem, ut confestim re- 
 cedatis ab his campis, pratis, hortis, vineis, aquis, si Dei 
 providentia adhiic vitam vobis indulgeat, nee amplius 
 in eis habitetis, sed ad ilia ac talia loca transeatis, ubi 
 nullis Dei servis nocere poteritis. Vobis, si per male- 
 ficium diabolicum hie estis, pro parte divinae majestatis, 
 totius curiae coelestis, necnon ecclesiae hie adhuc 
 militantis, impero, ut deficiatis in vobisipsis, ac de-
 
 286 Appendix 
 
 crescatis, quatenus reliquiae de vobis nullae reperiantur, 
 nisi ad gloriam Dei et ad usum et salutem humanum 
 conducibiles. Quod praestare dignetur qui venturus est 
 judicare viros et mortuos et saeculum per ignem, Resp. 
 Amen." Thesaurus Exorasmorum, Coloniae, 1626, p. 
 1204.
 
 Appendix 287 
 
 B 
 
 II 1 
 
 DE L'EXCELLENCE DES MONITOIRES 
 
 PAR GASPARD BAILLY 
 
 II ne favt pas mepriser les Monitoires, veu que c'est 
 vne chose grandement importante, portant auec soy le 
 glaiue, le plus dangereux dont nostre Mere sainte 1'Eglise 
 se sert, qui est 1'Excommunication, qui taille aussi bien 
 le bois sec que le verd, n'epargnant ny les viuans, ni les 
 morts ; et ne frappe pas seulement les Creatures raison- 
 nables, mais s'attache aux irraisonnables, tels que sont 
 les animaux. Les exemples en sont fre'quens, pour 
 preuue de cette verite. Car on a veu en plusieurs en- 
 droits qu'on a excommunie les bestioles et insectes, qui 
 apportoient du dommage aux fruits de la terre, et 
 obei'ssans aux commandemens de 1'Eglise se retiroient 
 dans le lieu ordonne par la sentence de 1'Euesque qui 
 leur formoit leur proces. Au Siecle passe, il y auoit telle 
 quantite d'Anguilles dans le Lac de Geneue, qu'elles 
 gastoient tout le Lac : De sort que les Habitans de la 
 Ville et enuirons, recoururent a 1'Euesque pour les Ex- 
 
 1 The first part of this treatise, consisting of seventeen chapters, 
 discusses the different kinds of " monitoires " and their applications. 
 Only the second part, describing the legal procedure, is here 
 printed.
 
 288 Appendix 
 
 communier, ce qu'ayant estd fait, le Lac fut deliure' de 
 ces animaux. 
 
 Du temps de Charles Due de Bourgogne fils de 
 Philippe le Bon, il y cut telle quantite de Sauterelles en 
 Bresse, en Italie qu'elles mirent presque la famine dans 
 tout le Mantoiian, si on n'y eut apporte* du secours par 
 1'Excommunication, et de ce nous parle Altiat dans ses 
 Embldmes, sous 1'intitulation nihil reliqui. 
 
 Scilicet hoc deerat post tot mala denique nostris, 
 Locustce vt raperent, quidquid inesset agris. 
 
 Vidimus innumeras Euro Duce tendere turmas ; 
 Qualia non Athila, Castrave Cersis erant. 
 
 Ha f(Etium mi Hum farra omnia consttmpserunt ; 
 Spes in Augusta est, stant nisi vota super. 
 
 On raconte en la vie de S. Bernard, qu'il se leua vne 
 si grande quantite de Mouches, d'vne Eglise qu'on auoit 
 basti a Loudun, que par le myen du bruit qu'elles 
 faisoient, elles empechoient a ceux qui entroient de prier 
 DIEV, ce que voyant le S. Personage il les Excommunia, 
 de sorte qu'elles tomberent toutes mortes ayant couuert 
 le paue* de 1'Eglise. 
 
 Nous lisons qu'en 1'ann^e 1541, il y eut vne telle 
 quantite de Sauterelles en Lombardie, qui tomberent 
 d'vne nue'e ; qu'ayant mange les fruits de la terre, elles 
 causerent la famine en ces lieux-la. Elles estoient longues 
 d'vne doigt, grosse teste, le ventre remply de vilenie et 
 ordure ; lesquelles estant mortes infecterent 1'Air de si 
 mauuaises odeurs, que les Courbeaux et autres animaux 
 carnassiers ne les pouuoient supporter. 
 
 On dit aussi qu'en Pologne il y eut aussi telle quantite 
 de ces animaux au commencement sans aisles, et apres 
 ils en eurent quatre, qu'ils couuroient deux mille, et 
 d'vne coude'e d'auteur, et tellement epaisses qu'en volant 
 elles leuoient la veiie de la clarte du Soleil, ces animaux
 
 Appendix 289 
 
 firent un degat non-pareil aux biens de la terre, et ne 
 purent estre chasses par autre force ny Industrie, que par 
 la malediction Ecclesiastique. 
 
 Saint Augustin raconte au Liure de la Cit6 de Dieu, 
 Chap, dernier, qu'en Afrique il y cut telle quantitd de 
 Sauterelles, et si prodigieuses, qu'ayans mange" tous les 
 fruits, feiiiles, et ecorces des arbres iusques a la racine, 
 elles s'e'leuerent comme vne nuee ; et tombees en la Mer, 
 causerent vne peste si forte, qu'en vn seul Royaume il y 
 morut huit cens mille Habitans. 
 
 Du temps de Lotaire troisieme Empereur apres Charle- 
 magne, il y eut dans la France des Sauterelles en nombre 
 prodigieux, ayans six aisles auec deux dents plus dures 
 que de pierre, qui couurirent toute la terre, comme de la 
 neige, et gasterent tous les fruits, arbres, bid, et foins, et 
 tels animaux ayans este jettes a la Mer ; il s'ensuiuit 
 vne telle corruption en 1'Air, que la peste rauageat 
 grande quantite de monde en ce pays la. Voila quantite" 
 d'exemples quo nous font voir le dommage que nous 
 apportent ces bestioles et insectes. Maintenant voyons 
 comme on leur forme leur proce's afin de s'en garantir 
 par le moyen de la malediction que leur donne 1'Eglise. 
 
 Premierement, sur la Requeste presentee par les 
 Habitans du lieu qui souffrent le dommage, on fait in- 
 former sur le degat que tels animaux ont fait, et estoient 
 en danger de faire, laquelle information rapportee, le Juge 
 Ecclesiastique donne vn Curateur a ses bestioles pour se 
 presenter en jugement, par Procureur, et la deduire 
 toutes leurs raisons, et se defendre contre les Habitans 
 qui veulent leur faire quitter le lieu, ou elles estoient, et 
 les raisons veue's et considere'es, d'vne part et d'autre il 
 rend sa Sentence. Ce que vous verrez clairement par le 
 moyen du plaidoyer suiuant. 
 19
 
 290 Appendix 
 
 Requeste des Habit ans 
 
 Svpplie hvmblement N. Exposans comme riere le 
 liieu de N. il y a quantitd de Souris, Taupes, Sauterelles 
 et autres animaux insectes, qui mangent les bids, vignes 
 et autres fruits de la terre, et font vn tel degat aux bids, 
 et raisins qu'ils n'y laissent rien, d'ou les pauures 
 supplians souffrent notable prejudice, la prise pendante 
 par racine estant consommde par ces animaux, ce qui 
 causera vne famine insupportable. 
 
 Qui les fait recourir a la Bontd, Clemence et Miseri- 
 corde de Dieu, a ce qu'il vous plaise faire en sorte que 
 ces animaux ne gastent, et mangent les fruits de la terre 
 qu'il a pleu a Dieu d'enuoyer pour 1'entretient des 
 hommes, afin que les supplians puissent vacquer, auec 
 plus de deuotions au seruice Diuin, et sur ce il vous 
 plaira pouruoir. 
 
 Plaidoyer des Habitans 
 
 Messievrs, ces pauures Habitans qui sont a genouy les 
 larmes a 1'ceil, recourent a votre Justice, comme firent 
 autre-fois ceux des Isles Maiorque et Minorque, qui 
 enuoyerent vers Aug. Cesar pour demander des Soldats, 
 afin de les defendre, et exempter du rauage que les Lapins 
 leur faisoient : vous auds des armes plus fortes que les 
 Soldats de cette Empereur pour garantir les pauures 
 supplians de la faim et necessitd de laquelle ils sont 
 menace's, par le rauage que font ces bestioles, qui 
 n'dpargnent ny bid, ny vignes ; rauage semblable a celuy 
 que faisoit vn Sanglier, qui gasta toutes les Terres, 
 Vignes, et Oliuiers du Royaume de Calidon, dont parle 
 Homere dans le premier Liure de son Hiliade, ou de ce 
 Renard qui fut enuoyd par Themis a Thebes, qui
 
 Appendix 291 
 
 n'epargnoit ny les fruits de la terre, ny le bestail attaquant 
 les Paysans mesmes. Vous sgauez assez les maux que 
 raporte la faim, vous aues trop de douceur, et de Justice 
 pour les laisser engager dans cette misere qui contraint 
 a s'abandonner a des choses illicites, et cruelles, nee enim 
 rationem patitur, nee vlla ceequitate mitigatur : nee prece 
 vlla flectitur esuriens populus : Temoins les Meres dont il 
 est parle au quatrieme des Roys, qui pendant la famine 
 de Samarie, mangerent les enfans, 1'une de 1' autre. Da 
 filium tuum, vt comedamus hodie, et filium meum 
 comedimus eras : Coximus ergo filium meum, et comedimus. 
 Quid turpe non cogit fames, sed nihil turpe, nihilve, vetitum 
 esuriens credit, sola enim cura est, vt qualicumque sorte 
 iuuetur. La mort qui vient par la famine est la plus cruelle 
 entant qu'elle est pleine de langueurs, de'bilite's et foib- 
 lesses de cceur, qui sont autant de nouuelles, et diuerses 
 especes de mort. 
 
 Dura quidem miseris, mors est, mortalibus onmis, 
 At perijsse fame, Res vna miserrima longe est. 
 
 Et Auian Marcellin dit, Mortis grauissimum genus, et 
 vltimum malorum fame perire. le crois que vous aurds 
 compassion, de ce pauuve Peuple, si on vous le repre- 
 sente, par aduance en 1'estat qu'il serait reduit si la faim 
 1'accabloit. 
 
 Hirtus erat crinis, cana lumina, pallor in ore, 
 Labia incana siti, scabri rubigine denies. 
 Dura cntis, per quam spectari viscera possunt. 
 Ossa sub incttruis extabant arida hinibis ; 
 Ventus erat, pro venire locus. 
 
 Les Gabaonistes, reuestus d'habits dechire's, et des 
 visages affames, auec de contenances toutes tristes, firent 
 pitie et compassion au grand Capitaine louse, et en ce't 
 estar obtiendrent grace et misericorde.
 
 292 Appendix 
 
 Les Informations et visites qui ont este faites par vos 
 commandements, vous instruisent suffisamment du degat 
 que ces animaux ont fait. Ensuite dequoy on a fait les 
 formalite's requises et necessaires, ne restant plus main- 
 tenant que d'adjuger les fins et conclusions prises par la 
 Requeste des demandeurs, qui sont ciuiles et raison- 
 nables, sur lesquelles il vois plaira de faird reflection, et 
 a ce"t efifet leur enioindre de quitter le lieu et se retirer 
 dans la place qui leur sera ordonnees en faisant les 
 execrations requises et necessaires, ordonne'es par nostrc 
 Mere Sainte 1'Eglise, a quoy les pauures demandeurs 
 concluent. 
 
 Plaidoyer pour les Insectes 
 
 Messievrs, ddpuis que vous m'aue's choisi pour la 
 defense ces pauures bestioles, il vois plaira que je 
 remontre leur droit, et fasse voir que les formalites, qu'on 
 a faites centre elles, sont nulles : m'etonnant fort de la 
 fagon qu'on en vse, on donne des plaintes centre elles, 
 comme si elles auoient commis quelque crime, on fait 
 informer du degat qu'on pretend qu'elles ayent fait, on les 
 fait assigner par-deuant le Juge pour respondre, et comme 
 on sgait qu'elles sont muettes, le Juge voulant suppleer a 
 ce defaut, leur donne vn Aduocat, pour representer en 
 Justice les raisons qu'elles ne peuuent deduire ; et 
 parceq; Messieurs, il vous a pleu de me donner la 
 liberte de parler pour les pauures animaux, je diray pour 
 leur defence en premier lieu. 
 
 Qve 1'adiovrnement laxd contr'elles est nul comme laxe 
 centre des bestes, qui ne peuuent, ny doiuent se presenter 
 en jugement ; la raison est, que celuy qu'on appelle, doit 
 estre capable de raison, et doit agir librement, pour pouuoir 
 connoitre vn delict. Or est-il que les animaux estans
 
 Appendix 293 
 
 priues de cette lumiere qui a estd donne'e au seul homme, 
 il faut conclurre par necessaire consequence, que telle 
 procedure est nulle ; cecy est tire de la Loi premieree, ff. 
 si quadrupes, pauper feciss. dicat ; et voyci les mots. Nee 
 enim potest animal, iniuriam fecisse, quod sensu caret. 
 
 La seconde raison est, que Ton ne peut appeller per- 
 sonne en jugement sans cause ; car autrement celuy qui 
 fait adjourner quelqu'vn sans raison, il doit subir la peine 
 portee sous le tiltre des instituts de pan. tern, litig. Mais 
 ces animaux ne sont obliges par aucune cause, ny en 
 aucune faQon, non tenentur enim ex contractu, estans in- 
 capables de contracter, neque ex quasi contractu, neque ex 
 stipulatione, neque ex pacto, moins ex delicto, seu quasi ; 
 parce que comme il a estd dit cy-deuant, pour commettre 
 vn crime, il faut estre capable de raison, qui ne se rencon- 
 tre pas aux animaux, qui sont priues de son vsage. 
 
 De plus dans la Justice, on ne doit rien faire qui ne 
 porte coup, la Justice en cela imitant la Nature ; laquelle, 
 comme dit le Philosophe, ne fait rien mal a propos, Deus 
 enim, et Natura nihil operantur frustra. Je laisse a pen- 
 ser quest-ce qu'on pretend de faire ayant adjourne ces 
 bestioles, elles ne viendront pas respondre ; car elles sont 
 muettes, elles ne constitueront pas des Procureurs, pour 
 defendre leur cause, moins leur donneront des memoires, 
 pour deduire en jugement, leur raison : Car elles sont 
 priuees de raisonnement, en sorte que tel adjournement 
 ne pouuant auoir aucun effect, est nul. Si done 1'adjourne- 
 ment qui est la base de tous les actes judiciels est nul, le 
 reste comme en dependant, ne pourra subsister cum enim 
 principalis causa non consistat, neque ea quoe. consequuntur 
 locum habent. 
 
 On dira peut-estre que si bien tels animaux, ne peuuent 
 constituer vn Procureur, pour la defense de leur droict,
 
 294 Appendix 
 
 et instruction de leur cause que le Juge de son office le 
 peut faire, et partant que le fait du Juge, est le fait de la 
 partie. A cela on respond qu'il est vray lors qu'il le fait 
 selon la disposition du droict, In administratione SUCK iuris- 
 dictionis, mais non pas en ce cas, ou la partie n'en pouuait 
 constituer, le Juge aussi, ne le peut faire, cecy est decide 
 par la glose de la Loy 2 ff. de administrat. res ad Civit. 
 pertinent, et pour preuue de cette proposition faite & propos 
 L'axiaume qui dit quod directe fieri prohibetur, per indirec- 
 tum concedi non debet, cap. tuae de procuratoribus, gloss, c. 
 i . de consanguinibus, et affinibus. Mais ce que je treuue plus 
 estrange, on pretend faire prononcer contre ces pauures 
 animaux vne Sentence d'Excommunication, d' Anathema 
 et malediction, et k quel sujet vser contre des bestioles 
 qui sont sans defense, du plus rigoureux glaiue que 
 1'Eglise aye en sa main, qui ne punit et ne chatie que les 
 Criminels ; ces animaux estans incapables de faire faute, 
 ni peche', parce que pour pecher il faut auoir la lumiere 
 de la raison laquelle dicernant le bien d'auec le mal, nous 
 monstre ce qu'il faut suiure, et ce qu'il faut fuir, et de plus 
 il faut auoir la liberte de prendre 1'vn et laisser 1'autre. 
 
 On vovdra peut-estre dire qu'elles ont manque en ce 
 qu'elles ne se sont presenters ayant este' adjurne'es, et 
 partant que la Contumace et defaut estant vn crime, on 
 peut faire rendre contre elles Sentence Contumaciale, k 
 cause de leur desobeissance : Mais a cela on respond 
 qu'il ny a point de Contumace, ou il n'y a point d'ad- 
 journement, ou du moins qui soit valable quia paria sunt 
 non esse citatum, vel non esse legitime citatum, ita dd. com- 
 muniter BartoL, in I. ea quae C. quomodo, etc. 
 
 De plus, si on prend garde & la definition de 1'Excommu- 
 nication, on verra qu'on ne peut prononcer telle Sentence 
 contre ces animaux : car 1'Excommunication est dite extra
 
 Appendix 295 
 
 Ecclesiam positio, vel qualibet communione, vel t quolibet 
 legitimo actu separatio. Tellement que tels animaux ne 
 peuuent estre dechasses de 1'Eglise, n'y ayans jamais 
 este", d'autant qu'elle est pour les hommes qui ont 1'ame 
 raisonnable, non pas pour les brutes, qui ne sont doiiees 
 d'aucune raison, et 1'Apostre S. Paul ad Corinth. 5 dit 
 qubd de Us quae fan's sunt nihil ad nos quoad Excommu- 
 nicationem, quia Excommunicare non possumus, 1'Excom- 
 munication afficit animam non corpus, nisi per quandam 
 consequent iam, cuius Medicina est, cap. i, de sentent. Ex- 
 comm. in 6. C'est pourquoy 1'ame de ces animaux, n'es- 
 tant immortelle, elle ne peut estre touchee par telle Sen- 
 tence, quae vergit in dispendium aeternae salutis. 
 
 L'autre raison est, quod facienti actum permissum non 
 imputatur, id quod sequitur ex illo, licet consecutiuum sit 
 repugnans statui suo cap. de occidendis 23 q. 5 cap. sicut 
 dignum extra de homicid. Ces animaux font vn acte per- 
 mis mesme par le droit Diuin. Car il est dit dans la 
 Genese fecit Deus bestias terrae iuxta species suas, iu- 
 menta, et omne reptile terrae in genere suo dixitque 
 Deus, ecce dedi vobis, omnem herbam afferentem semen 
 super terram, et vniuersa ligna, quae habent in semetipsis 
 sementem generis sut, vt sint vobis in escam ; et cunctis 
 animalibus terrae, omnique volucri coeli, vniversis quae 
 mouentur in terris, et in quibus est anima viuens ; vt habeat 
 ad vescendum. Que si les fruits de la terre ont estd faits 
 pour les animaux et pour less hommes, il leur est permis 
 d'en manger et prendre leur nourriture, aussi Ciceron dit 
 au premier des Offices principio generi omm 'um animantium 
 est a natura attributum, vt se vitam, cor pus que tueantur, 
 quaeque ad vescendum necessaria sunt inquirant. Par ces 
 raison on voit qu'ils n'ont commis aucun delict, ayant fait 
 ce qui leur est permis par le droit Diuin et de Nature, et
 
 296 Appendix 
 
 par ainsi ils ne peuuent estre punis, ny maudis, cum etiam 
 creaturae intellettuali, et rationale delinquent! seu damnum 
 afferenti, eo quod secundum solitumfarit ; non est Angela 
 licitum maledicere, multo minus erit licitum homini, veu 
 qu'on lit dans 1'Epistre de S. lude, cum altercaretur 
 Michael cum Diabolo de corpore Moysis non fuit ausus 
 maledicere Cap. Si igitur Michael, 23. q. 3. S. Thomas 2. 
 2. q. 76. dit que de dormer des maledictions aux choses 
 irraisonnables, estans Creatures de Dieu s'est peche de 
 blasphemer et de les maudire, les considerans en eux 
 mesmes, est otiosum, et vanum, et per consequens illicitum. 
 Que si toutes ces raisons ne vous touchent, peut-estre 
 cette-cy vous fera donner les mains, et persuadera a vostre 
 Esprit, qu'on ne peut donner aucune sentence d'Excom- 
 munication centre elles ny jetter aucun Anatheme. Car 
 pronongant telle Sentence s'est s'en pendre a Dieu, qui 
 par sa justice le enuoye pour punir les hommes et chastier 
 leurs peches, immitamque in vos bestias agri quae consu- 
 mant vos, et pecora vestra, et ad paudtatem cuncta redigant, 
 pouuant dire maintenant ce que Dieu a dit auant le De- 
 luge omnis Caro corrupit viam suam. Et Guide en ses 
 Metamorphoses voyant que le vice auoit pris le haut bout, 
 Triomphant, et faisant des conquestes par tout, au con- 
 traire la vertu estoit abaisse'e, exilee, et reduite en tel estat 
 qu'elle ne treuuoit aucune demeure parmy les Hommes. 
 
 Protinus irrufiit vena: prioris in ceuum, 
 
 Omne nefas, fugere pudor, verumque fidesque, 
 
 In quorum subiere locum, fraudtsque, dolusque. 
 
 Insidiaque, et ars, et amor sceleratus habendi, 
 
 Uiuitur ex rapto, non hospes ab hospite tutus, 
 
 Non socer d genera, fratrum quoque gratia rara est, 
 
 Imminet exitio vir, conjugis, ilia mariti 
 
 Liuida terribiles miscent aconitce noutrca 
 
 Filius ante diem, patrios inquirit in annos, 
 
 Uita iacet fietas, et virgo cade madentes. 
 
 Ultima Cilestum, Terras Astrea reliquit.
 
 Appendix 297 
 
 Par les quelles raisons on voit, que ces animaux sont 
 en nous absolutoires, et doiuent estre mis hors de Cour 
 et de Proces, a quoy on conclud. 
 
 Replique des Haitians 
 
 Le principal motif qu'on a rapporte pour la deffense de 
 ces animaux, est qu'estans priues de 1'vsage de la raison, 
 ils ne sont sommis a aucunes Loix, ainsi que dit le Chapi- 
 tre cum mulier i. 5. q. 1. la /. congruit in fin. et la Loix 
 suiuante. ff. de off. Praesid. sensu enim carens non subjidtur 
 rigori Juris Ciuilis. Toutesfois, on fera voir que telles 
 Loys ne peuuet militer au fait qui se prdsente maintenant 
 a juger, car on ne dispute pas de la punition d'vn delict 
 commis; Mais on tasche d'empescher qu'ils n'en com- 
 mettent par cy-apres, et partant ce qui ne seroit loisible a 
 vn crime commis, et permis afin d'empescher ne crimen 
 committatur. Cecy ce preuue par la Loy congruit sus 
 citd, ou il est dit qu'on ne peut pas punir vn furieux et 
 insense' du crime qu'il a commis pendant sa fureur, parce 
 qu'il ne scait ce qu'il fait, toutesfois on le pourra renfermer 
 et mettre dans des prisons, afin qu'il n'offence personne 
 et pour faire voir combien cdt Axiome est vray, ie me sers 
 de 1'authorite du Chapitre omnis vtriusque sexus de poeni- 
 tent. et remiss, ou il est dit qu'on peut deceller ce qu'on 
 a pris si on ne la pas execute, afin d'y rapporter du remede, 
 cette proposition est confirmee par la glose in cap. tua nos 
 ext. de sponsal. qui dit qui si quelqu'vn s'accuse d'auoir 
 Fiance une fille, par parolles de present ; on pourra de- 
 celler ce qui a este dit, afin que le Mariage se consume. 
 La raison est, qu'ayant espouse telle fille, si on nie de 
 1'auoir fait, et on refuse d'accomplir le Mariage, Videtur 
 esse delictum successiuum, et durare vsque illam acceperit, vt 
 ergo tali delicto obuietur. II este loisible de publier ce
 
 298 Appendix 
 
 qu'on a pris secretement Estant vray par les raisons de- 
 duites qu'on a peu adjourner, tels animaux, et que 1'ad- 
 journement est valable, d'autant qu'il est fait afin qu'ils 
 ne rapportent du dommage d'ores en auant, non pas pour 
 les chastier de celuy qu'ils ont fait II reste maintenant 
 de respondre a ce qu'on a aduance a sc.auoir que tels 
 animaux ne peuuent estre Excommunie's, Anathematises, 
 maudis ny execres ; a cela il semble que se serait doubter 
 de la puissance que Dieu a donne a 1'Eglise, 1'ayant fait 
 Maitresse de tout 1'Vnivers, comme sa chere Espouse, 
 de qui on peut dire, auec le Psalmiste, omnia subiecisti sub 
 pedibus e/'us, oues, et boues et omnia qua mouentur in aquis, 
 et estant conduite par le S. Esprit, ne fait rien que sage- 
 ment, et s'il y a chose ou elle doiue monstrer son pouuoir, 
 c'est a la Conservation du plus parfait ouurage de son 
 Espoux ; a sgauoir de 1'Homme, qu'il a fait k son Image 
 et semblance, faciamus hominem, ad imaginem, et simili- 
 tudinem nostram et luy a donne le Gouuernement de 
 toutes les choses crees eresrite et multiplicamini et domina- 
 mini piscibus marts, volatilibus cceli, et omnibus animantibus 
 Cceli ; Aussi Pline en son Liure premier de 1'Histoire 
 naturelle dit quod causa hominis, videtur cuncta alia 
 genuisse natura. Les Jurisconsultes sont d'accord, quod 
 hominis gratia, omnes fructus a natztra comparati sun/, /. 
 pecudum. ff. de vsur. et . partus ancillarum. instit. de rer. 
 diuis. et Guide descriuant 1'excellence de 1'Homme parle 
 
 de la sorte, 
 
 Pronaque, cum specttnt animalia caetera terras 
 Os homini sublime dedit, c&lumque tueri 
 lussit, et credos ad sidera tollere vultus. 
 
 et vn autre Poete, 
 
 Nonne vides hominem, vt Celsos ad sidera vultus 
 Sustulerit Deus, ac sublimia finxerit ora. 
 Cum pecudes, -volucrumque genus, formasque ferarum, 
 Segnem, atque obscatnam, passuri strauisset in aluum.
 
 Appendix 299 
 
 Picus Mirandulanus, en vne de ses Oraison parlant de 
 la grandeur de PHomme dit hominem tantce excellentiae, 
 ac sublimitatis esse, vt in se omnia continere dicatur, vti 
 Deus, sed diuersimode, Deus enim omnia in se continet, vti 
 omnium medium principium, homo verb, in se omnia con- 
 tinet, vti omnium medium, quo fit, vt in Deo sint omnia 
 meliore nota, qudm in seipsis, in homine inferior a nobiliori 
 sint conditione, superiora autem degenerent sicut aer, ignis, 
 aqua et terra per verissimam proprietatem natural SUCK, in 
 crasso hoc, et terreno, hominis corpore, quo nos videmus, hinc 
 etenim nulla creata substantia seruire dedignatur, hinc 
 Terra, et Elementa, huic bruta prceesto sunt, famulantur, 
 hinc militat ccelum, hinc salutem bonumque procurant 
 Angelicas mentes. 
 
 Et se seroit vne chose, si j'ose dire hors de raison, que 
 celuy pour qui la terre produit tous ces fruits, en fut 
 priue', et que de chetifs animaux, prissent leur norriture } 
 a 1'exclusion de l'Homme pour qui ils sont destines 
 de Dieu. C'est sur ce sujet qu'il dit Increpabo pro te 
 locustas duinmodo posueris de fructibus tuis in horrea 
 mea. 
 
 Et pour responce a ce qu'escrit S. Thomas qu'il n'est 
 loisible de maudire tels animaux, si on les considere en 
 eux mesmes, on dit qu'en 1'espece qu'on traitte, on ne 
 les considere pas, comme animaux simplement : mais 
 comme apportans du mal aux Hommes, mangeans et 
 ddtruisans les fruits qui seruent a son soutient, et 
 nourriture. 
 
 Mais a quoy, nous arrestons-nous depuis qu'on voit 
 par des exemples infinis que quantite de saints Person- 
 nages, ont Excommunie des animaux apportans du 
 dommage aux Hommes. II suffira d'en rapporter vn pour 
 tout, qui nous est cogneu, et familier, que nous voyons
 
 300 Appendix 
 
 continuellement, a $9auoir dans la ville d'Aix, oil S. 
 Hugon Euesque de Grenoble Excommuniat les serpens, 
 qui y estaient en quantitd a cause des bains chauds de 
 souffre, et d'Alun, qui faisaient vn grand dommage aux 
 Habitans de ce lieu par leur piqueures. De sorte que 
 maintenant si bien les Serpens piquent, quelqu'vn dans 
 le lieu, et confins : Telle piqueure ne fait aucun mal, le 
 venin de ces bestes estant arreste', par le moyen de telle 
 Excommunication, que si quelqu'vn est piqud hors de ce 
 lieu par les mesmes Serpens, la piqueure sera venimeuse 
 et mortelle ainsi qu'on a veu par plusieurs fois. le 
 laisse a part quantite de passages de 1'Escripture par 
 lesquels on voit que Dieu a donne des maledictions aux 
 choses inanime'es, et Creatures sans raison, ainsi qu'on 
 pourra voir au Leuitic. Ch. 26. et Deutlieronome 27. 
 Genes. 2. il maudit le Serpent Maledictus es, inter omnia 
 animantia, et bestias Terra. 
 
 De dire, qu'excommuniant, Anathematisant tels 
 animaux, s'est s'en prendre a Dieu, qui les a enuoye 
 pour le chastiment des hommes. A cela on respond 
 que ce n'est pas s'ens prendre a Dieu que de recourir a 
 1'Eglise, et la prier de diuertir, et chasser le mal, qu'il a 
 pleu a sa Diuine Majeste* de nous enuoyer, a cause de 
 nos fautes et peches ; au contraire c'est vn acte de 
 Religion que de recourir a elle, lors q'on voit que Dieu 
 leue sa main pour nous frapper. 
 
 Conclusion du Procureur Episcopal 
 
 Les defenses rapporte'es par 1'Aduocat de ces animaux, 
 contre les Conclusions prises par les Habitans sont 
 considerables qui meritent qu'on les examine meure- 
 ment; car il ne faut pas ietter le carreau d'Excommuni- 
 cation a la volde, et sans sujet, estant vn foudre qui est si
 
 Appendix 301 
 
 agissant, que s'il ne frappe celuy centre lequel on le 
 jette, il embrase celuy qui le lance. Le discours de ct 
 Aduocat est appuye sur la regie de Droict, qui dit, qui 
 iussu iudicis aliquid facit, p&nam non meretur, et vraye- 
 ment c'est le luge des luges, qui ne laisse rien d'impuny, 
 et qui distribue les peines a 1'egal des offences, sans 
 auoir egard a personne, de qui les jugemens nous sont 
 incognus, quam abscondita iudicia Dei, inuestigabiles via 
 ejus. Cest vne Mer profonde d'ont on ne peut de'couurir 
 le fonds. De dire pourquoy il n enuoye ces animaux, qui 
 mangent les fruits de la terre : Ce nous sont lettres 
 closes ; peut estre veut-il punir ce Peuple, pour auoir fait 
 la sourde oreille aux pauures qui demandoient a leurs 
 portes, estant vn Arrest infaillible, que qui fait aux 
 pauures la sourde oreille, attende de Dieu la pareille. 
 
 Ceux qui donnent 1'aumosne sont toujours sous la 
 protection Diuine, aussi S. Gierosme dit non memini me 
 legisse mala morte mortuum, qui libenter opera charitatis 
 exercuit, habet enim multos interces sores, et impossibile est, 
 multorum preces non exaudiri, et S. Ambrojse parlant de 
 ceux qui donnent I'aumone aux pauures, si non pauisti 
 necasti, pascendo seruare poteras, de mesmes la Loy de lib. 
 agnoscend. repute pour homicide celuy qui denie, et 
 refuse les alimens a ceux qui en ont besoin, et le 
 Prophete Ezechiel, c. 18. parlant de la recompense, que 
 Dieu a destinee a ceux qui font du bien aux pauures, qui 
 panem suum esurienti dederit et nudum operuerit vestimento, 
 Justus est, et vita viuet ; Lesquelles paroles Eusebe 
 expliche de la sorte, fregisti esurienti panem tuum, in 
 Coelo vitae pane qui Chris tus est satiaberis, hie peregrinis 
 domus tua patuit, in domo Angelorum, Ciuis efficieris tu 
 hie trementia membra destijsti, illic liberaberis ab illo 
 frigore, in quo erit fletus, et stridor dentium.
 
 302 Appendix 
 
 C'est vn acte de Charite^ que d'assister le pauures, 
 f range esurienti panem tuum et egenos, vagosque indue in 
 domum tuam, cum videris nudum, operi eum, et carnem 
 tuam ne despexeri, dit losue c. 38. aussi la recompense 
 est asseuree, ainsi qu'escrit S. Mathieu cap. 25. venite 
 Benedicti patris mei, possidete paratum vobis regnum a 
 constitutione mundi ; esuriui enim, et dedistis mihi man- 
 ducare ; sitiui, et dedistis mihi bibere ; hospes eram et 
 Collegistis me ; nudus eram, et operuistis me, amen dico 
 vobis quod vni fecistis ex fratribus meis minimis, mihi 
 fecistis. C'est vne ceuure de Misericorde d'auuoir 
 compassion de son prochain, ainsi que dit S. Ambroise 
 lib. 2. off. cap. 28. hoc maximum Misericorditz, vt 
 compatiamur alienis calamitatibus necessitates aliorum, 
 quantum possumus iuvemus, et plus interdum quant possu- 
 mus 1'Hospitalite est recommandee par S. Paul hospitali- 
 tatem nolite obliuisci, per hanc enim placuerunt quidam, 
 Angelis hospitio receptis, et S. Augustin disce Christiane 
 sine discretione exhibere hospitalitatem, ne forte cut domum 
 clauseris, cui humanitatem negaueris ipse sit Christus. 
 L'ordinaire recompence qui suit 1'aumosne est le centuple, 
 honora Dominum de tua substantia, et deprimitiis omnium 
 fructuorum tuorum de pauperibus, et implebuntur horrea 
 tua saturitate et vino torcularia tua redundabunt. Les 
 abismes de la Diuinite ne s'dpuisent jamais, pour donner, 
 et le sage Salomon, faneratur Domino qui miseretur 
 pauperi, et vicissitudinem sua?n reddet. S. Paul aux Cor- 
 inthiens Chap. 2. parle de la sorte, qui administrat 
 semen semtnantt, et panem ad manducandum pr<zstabit, 
 et multiplicabit semen suum. 
 
 Seroit-ce point a cause des irreuerences qu'on commet 
 aux Eglises pendant le service Diuin, ou sans aucun 
 e"gard a la presence de Dieu, conduntur stupra, tractantur
 
 Appendix 303 
 
 lenocinia, adulteria meditantur, frequentiiis deniqut ; in 
 izdituorum cellulis qubd in ipsis lupanaribus flagrans libido 
 defungitur, pour parler auec Tertullien ; car c'est la bien 
 souuent ou se donne le mot, ou se prennent les assigna- 
 tions, ou se lancent les meschantes ceilliades, Impudicus 
 oculuSy impudici cordis est nuncius, dit S. Augustin. Sur 
 tous les arbres et plantes, qui estaient en ^Egypte, le 
 peche etait consacre a Harpocrates qui prenait soin du 
 langage qu'on deuait tenir aux Dieux, parce que le fruit 
 du peche ressemble au cceur, et la feuille a la langue, 
 inferant de la que ceux qui allaient aux Temples, 
 deuoient penser saintement honestement, et sombrement 
 parler. 
 
 Numa Pompilius ne volut pas qu'on assistat au culte 
 Diuin par maniere d'aquit : Mais qu'en quittant toutes 
 choses, on y employat entierement sa pensde, comme au 
 principal acte de la Religion, et d'actions enuers les 
 Dieux, ne voulant pas mesme pendant le Seruice, qu'on 
 entendit parmy les Rues aucun bruit, et lors que les 
 Prestres faisoient le Sacrifices et ceremonies, il y auoit 
 des Sergens qui crioent au Peuple que Ton se tue, lais- 
 sant toute autre ceuvre pour estre attentif au Culte. 
 
 Que si les Payens ont este si exats en leur fausse 
 Religion au Culte de leurs Idoles, et imaginaires Diuin- 
 ite's, nous qui sommes Chrestiens, et auons la conoissance 
 du vray Dieu ; quel respect ne luy deuons-nous pas porter 
 dans les Eglises, pendant le S. Sacrifice de la Messe et 
 autres Offices Diuins. 
 
 Mais si bien Dieu est luste iusticier, qui ne laisse rien 
 impuni toutesfois la Justice ne tient pas si fort le haut 
 bout, que la misericorde, n'y treuue place. II est autant 
 Misericordieux que luste, et s'il enuoit quelques aduer- 
 sites aux pecheurs et les visite par quelque coup de foue't :
 
 304 Appendix 
 
 C'est pour les aduertir de faire penitence, par le moyen 
 de laquelle ils puissent de'tourner son courroux, et iuste 
 vengeance, et par ce moyen, ils se puissent reconcilier 
 auec luy, et obtenir ses graces, et pardon de leurs fautes 
 et peche's. 
 
 Nous voyons ces habitans la larme a 1'ceil, qui 
 demandent pardon d'vn coeur contrit de leurs fautes, 
 ayans horreur des crimes commis par le passe*, et 
 employent 1'assistance de 1'Eglise pour les soulager en 
 leurs ne'cessite's, et de'tourner le Carreau qui leur pend 
 sur la teste, estans menace's d'vne famine insuportable si 
 vous ne prends leur droit, et cause en protection, et faire 
 deloger ces animaux, qui les menagent d'vne ruine totale, 
 a quoy nous n'empeschons. 
 
 Concluans a c^t effect, qu'il plaise de rendre vostre 
 Sentence d'execution centre ces animaux, arm que d'ores 
 en auant ils n'apportent du dommage aux fruits de 
 la terre enjoignans aux Habitans, les Penitences, et 
 Oraisons, a ce conuenables et accoustumees. 
 
 La Sentence du luge d'Eglise 
 
 In nomine Domini amen, visa supplicatione pro parte 
 habitantium loci, nobis official! in iudicio facta, aduersus 
 Bronchos, seu Erucas, vel alia non dissimilia animalia 
 fructus vinearum eiusdem loci a certis annis, et adhuc 
 hoc praesenti anno, vt fade dignorum Testimonio, et quasi 
 publico Rumore asseritur, cum maximo incolarum loci, 
 et vicinorum locorum incommodo depopulantia, vt prae- 
 dicta animalia per nos moneantur, et remediis Ecclesi- 
 asticis mediantibus compellantur, a territorio dicti loci 
 abire, visisque diligenter, inspectis causis praedictae 
 supplicationis, necnon pro parte, dictarum Erucarum, seu 
 animalium, per certos Conciliari s eosdem, per nos
 
 Appendix 305 
 
 deputatos, propositis et allegatis, audito etiam super 
 praemissis promotore, ac visa certa informatione, et 
 ordinatione nostra, per certum dictae Curiae, Notarium, 
 de danmo in vineis, iam died loci, per animalia illato. 
 Quoniam, nisi eiusmodi damno, nisi diuina ope succurri 
 posse existimatur attenta praedictorum habitantium, 
 humili, ac frequenti, et importuna requisitione praesertim 
 magnae pristinae vitae errata emendandi per eosdem 
 habitantes, edicto spectaculo, solemniter supplicationum 
 nuper ex nostra ordinatione, factarum prompta ex- 
 hibitione, et sicut Misericordia Dei, peccatores ad se cum 
 humilitate reuertentes non respuit, ita ipsius Ecclesia 
 eisdem recurrentibus, auxilium seu etiam solatium quale- 
 cunque denegare non debet. 
 
 Non praedictus, in re quamquam noua, tarn fortiter 
 tamen efflagitata Maiorum vestigiis inhaerendo, pro 
 tribunali, sedentes, ac Deurn prae oculis habentes, in eius 
 Misericordia, ac pietate confidentes, de peritorum consilio, 
 nostram sententiam modo quae sequitur, in his scriptis 
 ferimus. 
 
 In nomine, et virtute Dei, Omnipotentis, Patris, et 
 Filij, et Spiritus sancti, Beatissimae Domini nostri Jesu 
 Christi Genetricis Mariae, Authoritateque Beatorum 
 Apostolorum, Petri et Pauli, necnon ea qua fungimur in 
 hac parte, praedictos Bronchos, et Erucas, et animalia 
 praedicta quocunque nomine censeantur, monemus in 
 his scriptis, sub pcenis Maledictionis, ac Anathemati- 
 sationis, vt infra sex dies, a Monitione in vim sententiae 
 huius, a vineis, et territoriis huius loci discedant, nullum 
 vlterius ibidem, nee alibi documentum, praestitura, quod 
 si infra praedictos dies, iam dicta animalia, huic nostrae 
 admonitioni non paruerint, cum effectu. Ipsis sex diebus 
 elapsis, virtute et auctoritate praefatis, ilia in his scriptis
 
 306 Appendix 
 
 Anathematizamus, et maledicimus, Ordinantes tamen, et 
 districte praecipientes, praedictis habitantibus, cuius- 
 cumque grades, ordinis, aut conditionis existant, vt 
 facilius ab Omnipotente Deo, omnium bonorum largitore, 
 et malorum depulsore, tanti incommodi liberationem, 
 valeant promereri, quatenus bonis operibus, ac deuotis 
 supplicationibus, iugiter attendentes, de caetero suas 
 decimas, sine fraude secundum loci approbatam con- 
 suetudinem persoluant, blasphemiis, et aliis peccatis, 
 praesertim publicis sedu!6 abstineant.
 
 Appendix 307 
 
 Allegation, replication, and judgment in the process 
 against field-mice at Stelvio in 1519. 
 
 KLAG 
 
 Schwarz Mining hat seinKlaggesetzt wider die Lutmause 
 in der Gestalt, dass diese schadliche Tiere ihnen grossen 
 merklichen Schaden tun, so wurde auch erfolgen, wenn 
 diese schadliche Tiere nit weggeschaft werden, dass sie 
 ire Jarszinse der Grundherrschaft nit nur geben konnten 
 und verursacht wurden hinweg zu ziehen, weil sie solcher 
 Gestalten sich nit wiissten zu ernehren. 
 
 ANTWORT 
 
 Darauf Grienebner eingedingt, und diese Antwort geben 
 und sein Procurey ins Recht gelegt : er hab diese wider 
 die Tierlein verstanden ; es sey aber manniglich bewusst, 
 dass sie allda in gewisser Gewohr und Nutzen sitzen, 
 
 darum aufzulegen sei : Derentwegen er in Hoffnung 
 
 stehe, man werde ihnen auf heutigen Tage die Nutz und 
 Gewohr mit keinem Urtel nehmen oder aberkennen. Im 
 Fall aber ein Urtel erging, dass sie darum weichen miissten, 
 so sey er doch in Hoffnung, dass ihnen ein anders Ort 
 und Statt geben soil werden, uf dass sie sich erhalten 
 mogen : es soil ihnen auch bei solchem Abzug ein frei 
 sicher Geleit vor iren Feinden erteilt, es seyn Hund
 
 308 Appendix 
 
 Katzen oder andre ihre Feind : er sey auch in Hoffnung, 
 wenn aine schwanger ware, dass derselben Ziel und Tag 
 geben werde, dass ir Frucht furbringen und alsdann auch 
 damit abziehen moge. 
 
 URTEL 
 
 Auf Klag und Antwort, Red und Widerred, und uf 
 eingelegte Kundschaften und Alles was fur Recht kommen, 
 ist mit Urtel und Recht erkennt, dass die schadlichen 
 Tierlein, so man nennt die Lutmause, denen von Stilfs 
 in Acker und Wiesmader nach Laut der Klag in vierzehn 
 Tagen raumen sollen, da hinweg ziehen und zu ewigen 
 Zeiten dahin nimmer mehr kommen sollen ; wo aber ains 
 oder mehr der Tierlein schwanger war, oder jugendhalber 
 nit hinkommen mochte, dieselben sollen der Zeit von 
 jedermann ain frey sicheres Geleit haben 14 Tage lang; 
 aber die so ziehen mogen, sollen in 14 Tagen wandern. 
 
 Vide Hormayr's Taschenbuch fur die vaterlandische 
 Geschichte. Berlin, 1845, pp. 239-40.
 
 Appendix 309 
 
 D 
 
 Admonition, denunciation, and citation of the inger 
 by the priest Bernhard Schmid in the name and by the 
 authority of the Bishop of Lausanne in 1478. 
 
 Du vnverniinfftige/ vnvollkommne Creatur/ mit nam- 
 men Inger/ vnd nenne dich darumb vnvollkommen/ dann 
 deines geschlechts ist nit geseyn in der Arch Noe/ in der 
 Zeit der vergifftung vnd plag des Wassergusses. Nun 
 hast du mit deinem anhang grossen schaden gethan im 
 Erdtrich vnd auff dem Erdtrich ein mercklichen abbruch 
 zeitlicher nahrung der Menschen vnd vnverniifftigen 
 thiere. Vnd von des nun/ somlicher und dergleichen/ 
 durch euch vnd euweren anhang nit mehr beshach/ so 
 hat mir mein gnadiger Herr vnd Bischoff zu Losann 
 gebotten in seinem nammen/euch zeermannen/ zeweichen 
 vnd abzestahn. Vnd also von seiner Gnaden gebotts 
 wegen vnd auch in seinem nammen als obstaht/ vnd bey 
 krafft der heiligen hochgelobten Dreyfaltigkeit/ vnd durch 
 krafft vnd verdienen des Menschen-geschlechts Erlosers/ 
 vnsers behalters Jesu Christi/ vnd bey krafft vnd gehor- 
 samkeit der heiligen Kirchen gebieten vnd ermannen ich 
 euch in 6. nachsten tagen zeweichen/ all vnd jegliche 
 besonders/ auss alien Matten/ Ackeren/ Garten/ Feldern/ 
 Weiden/ Baumen/ Kruteren/ vnd von alien orteren/ an 
 denen wachsend vnd entspringend nahrungen der Men- 
 schen vnd der Thieren/vndan dieort vnd statteuch fiigend/ 
 dass ihr mit ewerem anhang nimmer kein schaden vollbrin- 
 gen mogen an den fruchten vnd nahrungen der Menschen
 
 3 id Appendix 
 
 vnd Thieren/ heimlich noch offentlich. Were aber sach/ 
 dass ihr dieser ermannungen vnd gebott nit nachgiengend/ 
 oder nachfolgeten/ vnd meinten vrsach haben/ das nit 
 zeerfullen/ so ermannen ich euch alsvor/ vnd laden vnd 
 citieren euch bey krafft vnd gehorsamkeit der heiligen 
 Kirchen am 6. tag nach diser execution/ so es eins 
 schlecht/ nach mitten tag/ gen Wifflispurg/ euch zu 
 verantworten/ oder durch eweren Fiirsprechen antwort zu 
 geben/ vor meinem gnadigen Herren von Losann/ oder 
 seinem Vicario vnd statthaltern/ vnd wird drauff mein 
 gnadiger Herr von Losann oder sein statthalter fiirer/ 
 nach ordnungen des rechten/ wider euch/ mil verfl lichen 
 vnd beschweerungen/ handeln/ alss sich dann in solchem 
 gebiirt/ nach form vnd gestalt des rechten. Lieben 
 Kind/ ich begaren von ewerem jeglichen zu batten mit 
 andacht auff ewerem knyen 3 Paternoster vnd Ave Maria, 
 der hochen heiligen Dreyfaltigkeit zu lob vnd ehr anze- 
 riiffen/ vnd zebitten ihr gnad vnd hilff zesenden/ damit die 
 Inger vertriben werdind. 
 
 Job. Heinrich Hottinger: Historia ecclesiastica novi 
 testamenti iv. pp. 317 321, on the authority of Schilling's 
 Chronica, the manuscript of which is in the Zurich 
 library.
 
 Appendix 311 
 
 Decree of Augustus, Duke of Saxony and Elector, 
 commending the action of Parson Greysser in putting 
 the sparrows under ban, issued at Dresden in 1559. 
 
 Von Gottes Gnaden Augustus, Herzog zu Sachsen und 
 Kurfiirst. Lieber Getsener, welchergestalt und aus was 
 Ursachen und christlichem Eifer, der wiirdige, Unser 
 lieber andachtiger Hr. Daniel Greysser, Pfarrherr allhier 
 in seiner nachst getanen Predigt, iiber die Sperlinge etwas 
 heftig bewegt gewesen und dieselbe wegen ihres unauf- 
 horlichen verdriesslichen grossen Geschreis und arger- 
 lichen Unkeuschheit, so sie unter der Predigt, zu Verhin- 
 terung Gottes Worts und christlicher Andact, zu tun und 
 behegen pflegen, in den Bann getan, und manniglich 
 preis gegeben, dessen wirst du dich als der damals 
 ohne Zweifel aus Anregung des heiligen Geistes im 
 Tempel zur Predigt gewesen, guter massen zu erinnern 
 wissen. 
 
 Wiewohl Wir uns nun vorsehen, du werdest, auf 
 gedachten Herrn Daniels Vermahnen und Bitten, so 
 er an alle Zuhorer insgemein getan, ohne das allbereit 
 auf Wege gedacht haben ; sintemal Wir diesen Bericht 
 erlangt, dass du dem kleinen Gevogel vor andern 
 durch mancherlei visirliche und listige Wege und 
 Griffe nachzustellen, auch deine Nahrung unter andern 
 damit zu suchen und dasselbe zu fahen pflegest, dass 
 ihnen ihrem Verdienst nach gelohnt werden moge nach 
 weiland des Herrn Martini seligen Urtheil ist demnach
 
 312 Appendix 
 
 unser gnadiges Begehren zu eroffnen, wie und welcher- 
 gestalt auch durch was Behandigkeit und Wege, du fur 
 gut ansehest, dass die Sperlinge eher dann, wann sie 
 jungen, und sich durch ihre tagliche und unaufhorliche 
 Unkeuschheit unzahlich vermehren, ohne sonderliche 
 Kosten aus der Kirche zum heiligen Kreuz gebracht, und 
 solche argerliche Voglerei und hinterlicher Getzschirpe 
 und Geschrei im Hause Gottes, verkiimmert werden 
 moge. . . . Das gereicht zur Beforderung guter Kirchen- 
 zucht und geschieht daran unsere gnadige Meinung. 
 Datum Dresden, den. 18. Februar 1559. Unserm 
 Secretario und lieben getreuen Thomas Nebeln. 
 Vide Hormayr's Taschenbuch^etc., 1845, pp. 227-8.
 
 Appendix 
 
 Chronological List of Excommunications and Prose- 
 cutions of Animals from the Ninth to the Nineteenth 
 Century. 1 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Annales Ecclesias- 
 tici Francorum 
 
 824 
 
 Moles 
 
 Valley of 
 Aosta 
 
 Muratori : Rer. Ital. 
 
 886 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Roman 
 
 Scriptores, iii 
 
 
 
 Campagna 
 
 Gaspard Bailly : 
 Tralte des Monitoires 
 
 9th 
 cent. 
 
 Serpents 
 
 Aix-les-Bains 
 
 Sainte-Foix : Oeu- 
 
 1120 
 
 Field-mice 
 
 Laon 
 
 vret, iv, p. 97, Me- 
 mo:res de la Socie'te 
 Royale des Antiqua- 
 ires de France, viii, 
 
 
 and 
 Caterpillars 
 
 
 p. 427 
 
 
 
 
 Thdophile Rayn- 
 aui : De Monitoriis 
 
 1121 
 
 Flies 
 
 Foigny near 
 Laon 
 
 in Opusc. missc. ejus, 
 xi^p. 482. Memoires, 
 cit, viii, p. 415. Note, 
 Vita S. Bernhardi, i, 
 No 58. Acta., SS. 
 Au{. iv, p. 272 
 
 I 121 
 
 Horseflies 
 
 Mayence 
 
 1 \ few early instances of excommunication and malediction, our 
 knowledge of which is derived chiefly from hagiologies and other 
 legeidary sources, are not included in the present list, such, for 
 exar^ile, as the cursing and burning of storks at Avignon by St. 
 Agriola in 666, and the expulsion of venomous reptiles from the 
 islant Reichenau in 728 by Saint Perminius.
 
 3M- 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Malleolus : De Ex- 
 
 1225 
 
 Eels 
 
 Lausanne 
 
 orcismis 
 
 
 
 
 L'Abte Leboeuf: 
 Hist, de Paris, ix, p. 
 400. Mdmoires, cit., 
 
 1266 
 
 Pig 
 
 Fontenay-aux- 
 Roses near 
 Paris 
 
 viii, p. 427 
 
 
 
 
 Sainte-Foix : Oeu- 
 vres Thdmis, viii 
 
 I3 r 4 
 
 Bull 
 
 Moiey-le- 
 Temple 
 
 
 
 1320 
 
 Cockchafers 
 
 Avignon 
 
 Carpentier to Du 
 Cange, vide Homicida 
 
 1322 
 
 
 Not specified 
 
 j 
 
 1323 
 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 Both cited by Von 
 Amira, p. 552 
 
 
 
 
 Zeitschrift fiir 
 deutsche Kultur- 
 
 1338 
 
 
 Kaltern 
 
 geschichte, ii, p. 544 ; 
 also Germania, iv, p. 
 383. Von Amira, p. 
 561 
 
 
 
 
 Delisle : Etudes sur 
 la condition de la 
 
 I35 6 
 
 Pig 
 
 Caen 
 
 classe agricole, p. 107. 
 Von Amira, p. 552 
 
 

 
 Appendix 
 
 315 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Carpentier to Du 
 Cange. Vide homi- 
 cida. Von Amira, p. 
 
 1378 
 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 552 
 
 
 
 
 Gamier : Revue des 
 Societes Savantes, 
 Dec. 1866, pp. 476, 
 sqq . From the arch- 
 ives of Cote-d'Or 
 
 1379 
 
 Three sows 
 and a pig. 
 Rest of the 
 two herds 
 pardoned 
 
 Saint-Marcel 
 les-Jussey 
 
 Charange : Diet, des 
 Titres Originaux, ii, 
 p. 72. Also statis- 
 tique de Falaise, i, p. 
 63. Mdmoires, cit., 
 
 1386 
 
 Sow 
 
 Falaise 
 
 viii, p. 427 
 
 
 
 
 Auranton : Annu- 
 aire de la C6te-d'Or 
 
 1389 
 
 Horse 
 
 Dijon 
 
 Berriat - Saint- Prix 
 in Mdnoires, cit., viii, 
 p. 427. From MSS. 
 in la Bfoliotheque du 
 Roi 
 
 J 394 
 
 Pig 
 
 Mortaing 
 
 Malleolus : De Ex- 
 orcismis, Tract, ii, 
 Mdmoires, cit., viii, p. 
 
 1 4th 
 cent. 
 
 Spanish 
 flies 
 
 Mayence 
 
 411 
 
 

 
 316 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 MS. of Judge Her- 
 isson, published by 
 Lejeune in Memoires, 
 cit., viii, p. 433 ; also 
 Loriol : La France 
 
 1403 
 
 Sow 
 
 Meulan 
 
 Eure et Loire, p. 108 
 
 
 
 
 Auranton : Annu- 
 aire de la C6te-d'Or 
 
 1404 
 
 Pig 
 
 Rouvre 
 
 MS. Bibliotheque 
 du Roi Mdmoires, cit., 
 
 1405 
 
 Ox 
 
 Gisors 
 
 viii, p. 427 
 
 
 
 
 MS. Bibliotheque 
 du Roi Memoires, cit., 
 viii, p. 428 
 
 1408 
 
 Pig 
 
 Pont-de- 
 TArche 
 
 Louandre : Histoire 
 d'Abbeville 
 
 1414 
 
 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 11 11 11 
 
 1418 
 
 11 
 
 11 
 
 Auranton : Annu- 
 aire de la Cote-d'Or 
 
 1419 
 
 11 
 
 Labergement- 
 le-Duc 
 
 11 11 11 
 
 1420 
 
 11 
 
 Brochon 
 
 11 11 11 
 
 1435 
 
 11 
 
 Trocheres 
 
 Malleolus : De Ex- 
 orcismis, Mdmoires, 
 cit, viii, p. 423 
 
 1451 
 
 Rats and 
 Blood- 
 suckers 
 
 Berne
 
 Appendix 
 
 3 1 ? 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Gamier : Revue des 
 
 I45 2 
 
 Sixteen 
 
 Rouvre 
 
 Societes Savantes, iv, 
 
 
 cows and 
 
 
 p. 476 sqq. Dec. 1866 
 
 
 one goat 
 
 
 Gui-Pape : Decisiones 
 
 I45 6 
 
 Pig 
 
 Bourgogne 
 
 The'mis, i, p. 196 
 
 
 
 
 Memoires, cit., viii, 
 
 1457 
 
 Sow 
 
 Savigny-sur- 
 
 pp. 441-445. From 
 
 
 
 Etang, Bour- 
 
 Archives of Monjeu 
 
 
 
 gogne 
 
 and Dependencies 
 
 
 
 
 Desnoyers : Re- 
 
 1460-1 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Dijon 
 
 cherches, etc. 
 
 
 
 
 A. Duboys : Justice 
 
 ^63 
 
 Two pigs 
 
 Amiens 
 
 et Bourreau a Amiens 
 
 
 
 
 Sauval : Histoire de 
 
 1466 
 
 Sow 
 
 Corbeil 
 
 Paris, iii, p. 387. Me- 
 
 
 
 
 moires, cit., viii, p. 428 
 
 
 
 
 A Duboys : His- 
 
 1470 
 
 Mare 
 
 Amiens 
 
 toire de Paris 
 
 
 
 
 Promenades pittor- 
 
 1474 
 
 Cock 
 
 Bale 
 
 esques dans FEveche' 
 
 
 
 
 de Bale. Journal du 
 
 
 
 
 Department du Nord, 
 
 
 
 
 Nov. i, 1813. Me- 
 
 
 
 
 moires, cit., viii, p. 
 
 
 
 
 428. Johann Gross : 
 
 
 
 
 Kleine Baseler Chro- 
 
 
 
 
 nik. 
 
 

 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Schilling : Chronica 
 (Zurich MS.), Hott- 
 inger: Hist. Eccles. 
 Pars iv, pp. 317-321 
 
 1478 
 
 Inger (sort 
 of weevil) 
 
 Berne 
 
 Ruchat : Hist. Ec- 
 cles. du Pays de Vaud 
 
 1479 ! 
 
 Inger 
 
 
 
 Hist, de Nismes. 
 Me'moires, cit., viii, p. 
 428. 
 
 1479 
 
 Rats and 
 Moles 
 
 Nimes 
 
 Louandre : Hist. 
 d'Abbeville 
 
 H79 
 
 Pig 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 Chasseneus : Con- 
 silia von Amira, p. 5 6 1 
 
 1481 
 
 Caterpillars 
 
 Macon 
 
 Victor Hugo: Notre 
 Dame de Paris 
 
 1482 
 
 Goat 
 
 Paris 
 
 Chasseneus : Con- 
 silia. Me'moires, cit., 
 viii, p. 416 
 
 1487 
 
 Snails 
 
 Macon 
 
 
 
 1488 
 
 
 
 Autun 
 
 > > 
 
 1488 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Beaujeu 
 
 Louandre : Hist. 
 d'Abbeville 
 
 1490 
 
 Pig 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 1 This case is probably identical with and an adjournment of 
 that of 1478.
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Annuaire de 1'Aisne 
 1812, p. 88. Me'moi- 
 res, cit., viii, p. 428, 
 446 
 
 1494 
 
 Pig 
 
 Clermont-les- 
 Moncornet 
 near Laon 
 
 Saint-Edme: Diet, 
 de la Penalite', sub 
 verb. Animaux 
 
 1497 
 
 Sow 
 
 Charonne 
 
 Voyage Litteraire 
 de deux Be'ne'dictins 
 
 1499 
 
 Bull 
 
 Beauvais 
 
 (Durand et Martenne), 
 1717, ii, p. 166-7 
 
 
 
 
 Archives de 1'Ab- 
 baye de Josaphat. 
 Memoires, cit., viii, p. 
 
 1499 
 
 Pig 
 
 Seves near 
 Chartres 
 
 434-5 
 
 
 
 
 Me'moires, cit., viii, 
 
 iSth 
 
 Sow 
 
 Dunois 
 
 P- 434 
 
 cent. 
 
 
 
 Malleolus : De Ex- 
 
 
 
 Caterpillars 
 
 Coire 
 
 orcismis 
 
 
 
 
 5> 
 
 M 
 
 Worms 
 
 Constance 
 
 
 
 
 
 Beetles 
 
 Coire 
 
 Louandre : L'fipo- 
 pee des Animaux 
 
 1500 
 
 Flies 
 
 Mayence 
 
 Chasseneus : Con- 
 silia. 
 
 1500 
 
 Snails 
 
 Lyon
 
 320 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Chasseneus : Con- 
 silia 
 
 1500- 
 
 Vermin 
 (Rats, etc.) 
 
 Autun 
 
 Mdmoires et Docu- 
 
 I5 o 9 
 
 Vermin 
 
 Lausanne 
 
 ments, publ. par la 
 Soc. de la Suisse 
 
 
 
 
 Romande, vii, No. 
 
 
 
 
 97, PP- 675-677 
 
 
 
 
 Annuaire de la 
 Cote-d'Or 
 
 1510 
 
 Pig 
 
 Dijon 
 
 Annuaire de la 
 Cote-d'Or. Me'moires, 
 
 1512 
 
 
 
 Arcenaux 
 
 cit, viii, p. 447 
 
 
 
 
 x Mathieu : Hist, des 
 Eveques de Langres, 
 p, 188 
 
 1512- 
 13 
 
 Rats and 
 Insects 
 
 Langres 
 
 Groslee: Ephe'me'- 
 rides, 1811, ii, p. 153, 
 1 68. Cf. Theophile 
 Raynaud: Opusc, 
 1665, p. 482. Me'- 
 moires, cit., viii, p. 
 413, 418, 424 
 
 1516 
 (1506 
 
 accord- 
 ing to 
 some 
 author- 
 ities) 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Troyes in 
 Champagne 
 
 Habasque : Not. 
 hist, sur le Litoral des 
 
 1516 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Tre'guier 
 
 C6tes-du-Nord, p. 89 
 
 
 
 
 Scheible : Das Klos- 
 
 i5 T 9 
 
 Field-mice 
 
 Glurns 
 
 ter, \ii, pp. 946-48 
 
 
 
 (Stelvio)
 
 Appendix 
 
 321 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Saint-Edme : Diet, 
 de la Penalite. Cf. 
 Chasseneus 
 
 I522 1 
 
 Rats 
 
 Autun 
 
 Vernet in Themis 
 ou Bibliotheque des 
 Jurisconsulte, viii 
 
 IS25 
 
 Dog 
 
 Parliament of 
 Toulouse 
 
 Papon and Boesius: 
 Decisiones. Cf. The'- 
 
 1528 
 
 Not 
 specified 
 
 Parliament of 
 Bordeaux 
 
 mis, viii 
 
 
 
 
 J> 5) 
 
 1528 
 
 
 
 )> j> 
 
 Menebrea : Juge- 
 ments rendus centre 
 les Animaux, p. 505. 
 From Grenier : Docu- 
 
 1536 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Lutry (on 
 Lake Leman) 
 
 ments relatifs a 1'hist. 
 
 
 
 
 du pays de Vaud. 
 
 
 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 !54 
 
 Bitch 
 
 Meaux 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 Annuaire de la 
 Cote-d'Or 
 
 1540 
 
 Pig 
 
 Dijon 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 i54i 
 
 She-Ass 
 
 Loudun 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 Bailly : Traite des 
 Monitoires, ii 
 
 i54i 
 
 Grass- 
 hoppers 
 
 Lombardy 
 
 1 Identical with the sentences covering the period of 1500-1530. 
 21
 
 322 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Malleolus : De Ex- 
 orcismis 
 
 1541 
 
 Vermin 
 (worms, 
 rats, blood- 
 suckers) 
 
 Lausanne 
 
 Berriat-Saint-Prix in 
 Themis, i, p. 196 
 
 1543 
 
 Snails and 
 Locusts 
 
 Grenoble 
 
 Menebrea : Juge- 
 ments rendus centre 
 
 1545 
 
 and 
 
 Weevils 
 
 St. Jean de 
 Maurienne 
 
 les Animaux, pp. 544, 
 545, 556. De Actis 
 Scindicorum com. St. 
 
 1546 
 
 
 
 Jul., etc. 
 
 
 
 
 Dulaure : Hist, de 
 Paris, iii, p. 28, Regis- 
 tres manuscrits de la 
 
 1546 
 
 Cow 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris 
 
 Tournelle. Cf. Me'- 
 
 
 
 
 moires, cit.,viii, p. 42 9 
 
 
 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1550 
 
 
 
 5> 55 
 
 >t 55 
 
 i55i 
 
 Goat 
 
 He de Rhd 
 
 55 >J >) 
 
 1554 
 
 Sheep (ewe) 
 
 Beauge' 
 
 Aldrovande : De 
 Insectis, 1602, lib. 
 vii, 724. Memoires, 
 
 *554 
 
 Blood- 
 suckers 
 
 Lausanne 
 
 cit. viii, p. 429 
 
 

 
 Appendix 
 
 3 2 3 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Desnoyer, cited in 
 Revue des questions 
 historiques, v, p. 278. 
 Von Armira, p. 567 
 
 !554 
 
 Insects 
 
 Langres 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1556 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Sens 
 
 Lecoq : Hist, de la 
 Ville de Saint-Quin- 
 tin, p. 143. Sorel : 
 Proces contre des 
 animaux, etc., p. 9 
 
 1557 
 
 Pig 
 
 Saint-Quintin 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1560 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Loigny near 
 Chateaudun 
 
 J5 )> 
 
 1561 
 
 Cow 
 
 Augoudessus 
 in Picardy 
 
 Lessona : I Nemici 
 del Vino. Regist. Epir. 
 Par. for May 8 
 
 1562 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Argenteuil 
 
 Ranchin on Gui. 
 Pape Quaest., 74. 
 Themis, i, p. 196. 
 Mdmoires, cit., viii, 
 p. 429 
 
 r 5 6 5 
 
 Mule 
 
 Montpellier 
 
 Papon : Decisiones. 
 Thdmis, viii 
 
 1565 
 
 Not 
 specified 
 
 Parliament of 
 Toulouse 
 
 Louandre: L'Epo- 
 pde des Animaux 
 
 1566 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris
 
 3 2 4 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 MSS. of Biblio- 
 theque Nationale ol 
 Paris 
 
 1567 
 
 Sow 
 
 Senlis 
 
 Lionnois : Hist, de 
 Nancy, 1811, ii, p. 
 374 
 
 1572 
 
 Pig 
 
 Moyen- 
 Montier, near 
 Nancy 
 
 Lersner : Chronica, 
 1706, p. 552 
 
 1574 
 
 j> 
 
 Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main 
 
 Brillon : Decisiones 
 The'mis, viii 
 
 1575 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris 
 
 Haus-Chronik von 
 Schweinfurt, in Zeit- 
 schrift fiir deutsche 
 
 1576 
 
 Pig 
 
 Schweinfurt 
 
 Kulturgeschichte, i, 
 156 
 
 
 
 
 Cannaert : Bydra- 
 gen tot de Kennis 
 van het oude straf- 
 
 1578 
 
 Pig(?) 
 
 Ghent 
 
 recht in Vlandern, 
 1835, p. vii 
 
 
 
 
 Derheims : Hist, de 
 Saint-Omer, p. 327 
 
 1585 
 
 Pig 
 
 Saint-Omer 
 
 Chorier: Hist, du 
 Dauphine". Cf. The'- 
 mis, i, p. 196 
 
 > 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Valence
 
 Appendix 
 
 3 2 5 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Menebrea : Juge- 
 ments rendus centre 
 
 1587 
 
 Weevils 
 
 St. Jean-de- 
 Maurienne 
 
 les animaux, etc., pp. 
 546, 549 
 
 
 
 
 Fornery and Lain- 
 cel 
 
 1596 
 
 Dolphins 
 
 Marseilles 
 
 Theophile Ray- 
 naud: De Monitoriis, 
 p. 482. Mdmoires, cit, 
 viii, p. 429 
 
 1 6th 
 cent, 
 (first 
 half) 
 
 Weevils anc 
 Grass- 
 hoppers 
 
 Cotentin 
 
 Chasseneus : Con- 
 silia. Mdmoires, cit., 
 
 
 
 Snails 
 
 Lyons 
 
 viii, p. 415 
 
 
 
 
 J> !J 
 
 9) 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Mstcon 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 Pig 
 
 Dijon 
 
 Louandre : L'Epo- 
 p6e des Animaux 
 
 jj 
 
 Dog 
 
 Scotland 
 
 Duboys : Hist, du 
 Droit Crim. de la 
 
 1 6th 
 cent. 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Angers 
 
 France 
 
 second 
 
 
 
 
 half 
 
 
 
 Azpilcueta Martin- 
 us Doctor Navarrus : 
 
 j> 
 
 Rats 
 
 Spain 
 
 Consilia seu Responsa, 
 1602, ii, p. 812. M.6- 
 
 
 
 
 moires, cit., viii, p. 
 419. The'oph. Ray- 
 naud, cit., p. 482 
 
 

 
 326 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Francesco Vivio : 
 Decisiones, No. 68. 
 Cited by D'Addosio : 
 Bestie Delinq., p. 125 
 
 1 6th 
 cent, 
 second 
 half 
 
 Divers ani- 
 mals 
 
 Aquila in Italy 
 
 Archives of Ob- 
 walden 
 
 
 
 Gadflies 
 
 Aargau 
 
 Leonardo Vairo : 
 De Fascino. Cf. D'Ad- 
 dosio, cit., p. 115. 
 
 > 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Naples 
 
 Sardagna : L'uomo 
 e le Bestie. Cited by 
 D'Addosio 
 
 > 
 
 Horse 
 
 Portugal 
 
 Mornacius to Du 
 
 1600 
 
 
 Beauvais 
 
 Cange, s.v. Homicida 
 
 
 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 19 
 
 Cow 
 
 Thouars 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 )> 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 Abbeville 
 
 Lessona : I Nemici 
 del Vino, 1890, p. 141 
 
 n 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Vercelli 
 
 Papon : Decisiones. 
 The'mis, viii. Lerouge: 
 Reg. secret manuscrit 
 
 1601 
 
 Dog 
 
 Brie 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 
 
 Mare 
 
 Provins 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 

 
 Appendix 
 
 3 2 7 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 P apon : R e c u e i 1 
 d'Arrets 
 
 1601 
 
 Not 
 specified 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris 
 
 Charma : Lemons de 
 Philosophie 
 
 1604 
 
 Ass 
 
 Parliament or 
 Paris 
 
 Guerra: Diurnali 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 Naples 
 
 Lerouge : Regis tre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 >j 
 
 Mare 
 
 Joinville 
 
 55 5 55 
 
 1606 
 
 Sheep 
 
 Riom 
 
 55 55 )) 
 
 
 
 Cow 
 
 Chateau- 
 renaud 
 
 55 55 55 
 
 > 
 
 Mare 
 
 CoifTy near 
 Langres 
 
 Lejeune: Memoires, 
 cit, viii, p. 418 
 
 5> 
 
 Bitch 
 
 Chartres 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1607 
 
 Mare 
 
 Boursant near 
 d'Epernay 
 
 55 ) 55 
 
 1609 
 
 55 
 
 Montmorency 
 
 55 
 
 5> 
 
 55 
 
 Niederrad 
 
 Voltaire : Siecle de 
 Louis XIV, ch. i. 
 Louandre : Rev. des 
 deux Mondes, 1854, 
 i, P- 334 
 
 55 
 
 Cow 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris
 
 328 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 1610 i Horse 
 
 Paris 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 >i ii i> 
 
 1611 
 
 Goat 
 
 Laval 
 
 i> ii 
 
 
 
 Cow 
 
 St Fergeux 
 near Rethel 
 
 >i >i 
 
 1613 
 
 Sow 
 
 Montoiron 
 
 
 
 
 near 
 
 
 
 
 Chatelleraut 
 
 i> i> 
 
 1614 
 
 She-Ass 
 
 Le Mans 
 
 Desnoyers : Re- 
 cherches, etc., p. 13 
 
 1616 
 
 Rats and 
 insects 
 
 Langres 
 
 Anzeige fur Kunde 
 der deutschen Vorzeit, 
 1880, col. 102 
 
 1621 
 
 Cow 
 
 Machern near 
 Leipsic 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 1621 
 
 Mare 
 
 La Rochelle 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 j> 
 
 1622 
 
 ii 
 
 Montpensier 
 
 ii ii 
 
 1623 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Bessay near 
 Moulins 
 
 >i ji ii 
 
 1624 
 
 Mule 
 
 Chefboutonne 
 (Poitou) 
 
 Dopier: Theat. 
 pen., ii, p. 574 
 
 1631 
 
 Mares and 
 Cows 
 
 Greifenberg
 
 Appendix 
 
 3 2 9 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Marchisio Michele : 
 Gatte ed. insetti noc- 
 ivi, 1834, p. 63 sqq. 
 
 1633 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Strambino 
 (Ivrea) 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 
 
 Mare 
 
 Bellac 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 Carpentier to Du 
 Cange, s. v. Homicida 
 
 1641 
 
 Pig 
 
 Viroflay 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1647 
 
 Mare 
 
 Parliament of 
 Paris 
 
 ji 
 
 1650 
 
 J> 
 
 Fresnay near 
 Chartres 
 
 Crollolanza: Storia 
 del Contado di Chia- 
 
 1659 
 
 Caterpillars 
 
 Chiavenna 
 
 venna, p. 455 sqq. 
 
 
 
 
 Perrero : Gazzetta 
 
 1661 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Turin 
 
 Litteraria di Torino, 
 Feb. 24, 1883 
 
 
 
 
 Cotton Mather: 
 Magnalia Christi 
 Americana, Book vi. 
 London, 1702 
 
 1662 
 
 Cow, 
 two Heifers, 
 three Sheep, 
 and two 
 
 New Haven, 
 Conn. 
 
 
 
 Sows 
 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 1666 
 
 Mare 
 
 Tours 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 5> 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 St. P. Lemon- 
 
 
 
 
 tiers
 
 33 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1667 
 
 She- Ass 
 
 Vaudes near 
 Bar-sur-Seine 
 
 H j> j 
 
 1668 
 
 Mare 
 
 Angers 
 
 Annales scientifi- 
 ques de 1'Auvergne, 
 Vol. vii, p. 391 
 
 1670 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Clermont 
 
 Dopier : Theatrum 
 pen., ii, p. 5 
 
 1676 
 
 Mare and 
 Cow 
 
 Silesia 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1678 
 
 j> 
 
 Beaug^ 
 
 Perrero : Gaz. Lit- 
 ter, di Torius, Feb. 
 24, 1883 
 
 n 
 
 Weevils 
 
 Turin 
 
 Brillon : Decisi- 
 ones, i, p. 914. Me- 
 moires, cit., viii, p. 
 431. Boniface : Traite 
 des matieres crimin- 
 elles, 1785, p. 31 
 
 1679 
 
 Mare 
 
 Parliament 
 d'Aix 
 
 Chorier : Hist, du 
 Dauphind Themis, 
 viii 
 
 Before 
 1680 
 
 Worms 
 
 Constance and 
 Coire 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 1680 
 
 Mare 
 
 Fourches nea 
 Provins
 
 Appendix 
 
 33 1 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Heinrich Roch : 
 
 1681 
 
 Mare 
 
 Wiinschelburg 
 
 Schlesische Chronik, 
 
 
 
 in Silesia 
 
 p. 342. Dopier: 
 
 
 
 
 Theat. pen., ii, p. 573 
 
 
 
 
 sqq. 
 
 
 
 
 j> 
 
 1684 
 
 Mare 
 
 Ottendorf 
 
 >> 
 
 1685 
 
 
 
 Striga 
 
 Dulaure : Descrip- 
 
 1690 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Pont-de- 
 
 tion des principaux 
 
 
 
 Chateau in 
 
 lieux de la France, 
 
 
 
 Auvergne 
 
 1789, v, p. 493 -W- 
 
 
 
 
 Mdmoires, cit., viii, 
 
 
 
 
 p. 412 
 
 
 
 
 Lerouge : Registre 
 
 1692 
 
 Mare 
 
 Moulins 
 
 secret manuscrit 
 
 
 
 
 La Hontan : Voy- 
 
 End of 
 
 Turtle- 
 
 Canada 
 
 ages, Let. xi, p. 79. 
 
 1 7th 
 
 doves 
 
 
 Memoires, cit, viii. 
 
 cent. 
 
 
 
 P- 43 1 
 
 
 
 
 Meiners: Vergleich- 
 
 
 
 He-Goat, 
 
 Russia 
 
 ung des altern u, 
 
 
 banished to 
 
 
 neuern Russlands, p. 
 
 
 Siberia 
 
 
 291. Cf. Amira, p. 
 
 
 
 
 573 
 
 
 
 
 Registres de la 
 
 1710 
 
 Rats 
 
 Grignon 
 
 Paroise de Grignon 
 
 

 
 33 2 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Sorel: Proces con- 
 tre des animaux, etc., 
 
 1710 
 
 Vermin 
 
 Autun 
 
 P- 2 3 
 
 
 
 
 Rinds Herreds 
 Kronike and other 
 
 1711 
 
 
 
 Alsin Jutland 
 
 sources given by 
 Amira, p. 565 
 
 
 
 
 Agnel : Curiosites 
 judiciaires et histori- 
 ques du moyen-age, 
 p. 46. Cf. Manoel 
 Bemardes : Nova 
 
 1713 
 
 Termites 
 
 Piedade no 
 Maranhao in 
 Brazil 
 
 Floresta ou Sylva de 
 varios apophthegmas, 
 etc. 5 torn. Lisboa, 
 1706-47 
 
 
 
 
 MSS. of Biblio- 
 theque Nationale of 
 Paris, No. 10,970. 
 D'Addosio : Best. 
 
 1726 
 
 Not 
 specified 
 
 Paris 
 
 Del., p. 107 
 
 
 
 
 Menebrea : Juge- 
 ments centre les ani- 
 
 1731 
 
 Insects 
 
 Thonon 
 
 maux, p. 508 
 
 
 
 
 La Tradition, 1888, 
 p. 363 sqq. Amira, p. 
 564 
 
 '733 
 
 Vermin 
 
 Buranton
 
 Appendix 
 
 333 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Rousseaud de La- 
 combe : Traite des 
 
 1741 
 
 Cow 
 
 Poitou 
 
 matieres crim. D'Ad- 
 
 
 
 
 dosio : Best. Del., p. 
 
 
 
 
 107 
 
 
 
 
 Ant. de Saint-Ger- 
 vais : Hist, des Ani- 
 
 175 
 
 She-Ass 
 
 Vanvres 
 
 maux 
 
 
 
 
 A Report of the 
 Case of Farmer Car- 
 ter's Dog. Amira, p. 
 
 1771 
 
 Dog 
 
 Chichester, 
 England 
 
 559 
 
 
 
 
 Comparon : Hist, 
 du Tribunal Revo- 
 
 1793 
 
 
 
 Paris 
 
 lutionnaire de Paris. 
 
 
 
 
 Cf. Sorel, op. cit., p. 
 16 
 
 
 
 
 Filangieri : Scienza 
 della Legislazione 
 
 1 8th 
 cent. 
 
 Dogs 
 
 Italy 
 
 Det. Kong. Danske 
 Landhusholdnings- 
 Selskabs Skrifter. Ny 
 Saml. ii, i, 22. Amira, 
 
 1805-6 
 
 Vermin 
 
 Lyd in Den- 
 mark 
 
 p. 565. 
 
 
 
 
 Desnoyers: Re- 
 cherches, etc., p. 15 
 
 1826 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Clermont- 
 Ferrand
 
 334 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Sources of Information 
 
 Dates 
 
 Animals 
 
 Places 
 
 Gazette des Tribun- 
 aux, Jan. 23, 1845 
 
 1845 
 
 Dog 
 
 Paris 
 
 
 
 1864 
 
 Pig 
 
 Pleternica in 
 Slavonia 
 
 Krauss, quoted by 
 Amira, p. 573 
 
 1866 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Pozega in 
 Slavonia 
 
 >i 
 
 n 
 
 Grass- 
 hoppers 
 
 Vidovici in 
 Slavonia 
 
 Desnoyer : Recher- 
 ches, etc., p. 15 
 
 1 9th 
 cent. 
 
 Locusts 
 
 Catalonia 
 
 Allg. deutsche 
 S t rafrechts-z e i t u n g, 
 1861, No. 2. Also 
 Fertile : Gli animali 
 
 n 
 
 Cock 
 
 Leeds in 
 England 
 
 in giudizio 
 
 
 
 
 Cretella : Gli Ani- 
 mali sotto processo in 
 Fanfulla 1891, No. 
 65. Cf. Amira, p. 569 
 
 n 
 
 Wolf 
 
 Calabria 
 
 New York Herald 
 and Echo de Paris, 
 May 4, 1906* 
 
 1906 
 
 Dog 
 
 Delemont in 
 Switzerland 
 
 1 In this latest record of such prosecutions a man named Marger 
 was killed and robbed by Scherrer and his son, with the fierce and 
 effective co-operation of their dog. The three murderers were tried 
 and the two men sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, but the dog, 
 as the chief culprit, without whose complicity the crime could not 
 have been committed, was condemned to death.
 
 Appendix 335 
 
 Receipt dated Jan. 9, 1386, in which the hangman 
 of Falaise acknowledges to have been paid by the 
 Viscount of Falaise ten sous and ten deniers tournois 
 for the execution of an infanticidal sow, and also ten 
 sous tournois for a new glove. 
 
 Quittance originale du 9, Janvier 1386, passee devant 
 Guiot de Montfort, tabellion a Falaise, et donnee par 
 le bourreau de cette ville de la somme de dix sols et dix 
 deniers tournois pour sa peine et salaire d'avoir traind, 
 puis pendu a la justice de Falaise une truie de 1'age 
 de 3 ans ou environ, qui avoit mange le visage de 
 1'enfant de Jonnet le Maux, qui etait au bers et avoit 
 trois mois et environ, tellement que ledit enfant en 
 mourut, et de dix sols tournois pour un gant neuf 
 quand le bourreau fit la dite execution ; cette quittance 
 est donnd a Regnaud Rigault, vicomte de Falaise; le 
 bourreau y declare qu'il se tient pour bien content des 
 dites sommes, et qu'il en tient quitte le roy et ledit 
 vicomte. 
 
 Charange : Dictionnaire des Titres Originaux. Paris, 
 1764. Tome IT. p. 72. Also Statistique de Falaise, 
 1827. Tome i. p. 63.
 
 336 Appendix 
 
 H 
 
 Receipt, dated Sept. 24, 1394, in which Jehan Micton, 
 hangman, acknowledges that he received the sum of fifty 
 sous tournois from Thomas de Juvigney, viscount of 
 Mortaing, for having hanged a pig which had killed and 
 murdered a child in the parish of Roumaygne. 
 
 A tous ceulx qui ces lettres verront ou orront, 
 Jehan Lours, garde du seel des obligacions de la 
 vicomte de Mortaing, salut, Sachent tous que par devant 
 Bynet de 1'Espiney, clerc tabellion jurd ou siege dudit 
 lieu de Mortaing, fut present mestre Jehan Micton, 
 pendart, 1 en la viconte d'Avrenches, qui recognut et 
 confessa avoir eu et repceu de homme sage et pourveu 
 Thomas de Juvigney, viconte dudit lieu de Mortaing, c'est 
 assavoir la somme de cinquante souls tournois pour sapaine 
 et salaire d'estre venue d'Avrenches jusques a Mortaing, 
 pour faire acomplir et pendre a la justice dudit lieu de 
 Mortaing, un pore, lequel avait tue' et meurdis un enfant 
 en la paroisse de Roumaygne, en ladite viconte de 
 Mortaing. Pour lequel fait ycelui pore fut condanney 
 a estre trayne' et pendu, par Jehan Pettit, lieutenant du 
 bailli de Co . . . . rin, es assises dudit lieu de Mortaing, 
 de laquelle somme dessus dicte le dit pendart se tint 
 pour bien paid, et en quita le roy nostre sire, ledit 
 
 1 In modern French pend&rd means hang-dog. M. Lejeune 
 states that he can recall no other instance of its use as synonymous 
 with bourreau or hangman. Perhaps a facetious clerk may have 
 deemed it applicable to a person whose office was in the present 
 case that of a hang-pig.
 
 Appendix 337 
 
 viconte et tous aultres. En tesmoing de ce, nous avons 
 selld ces lettres dudit seel, sauf tout autre droit. C'en 
 fut fait 1'an de grace mil trois cens quatre-vings et 
 quatorze, le XXIIIP jour de septembre. Signd 
 J. LOURS. (Countersigned) BINET. 
 
 [Extract from the manuscripts of the Bibliotheque 
 du Roi. Vide Memoires, ibid. pp. 439-40.]
 
 338 Appendix 
 
 I 
 
 Attestation of Symon de Baudemont, lieutenant of the 
 bailiff of Mantes and Meullant, made by order of the 
 said bailiff and the King's proctor, on March 15, 1403, 
 and certifying to the expenses incurred in executing a 
 sow that had devoured a small child. 
 
 A tous ceuls qui ces lettres verront : Symon de Baude- 
 mont, lieutenant a Meullant, de noble homme Mons. 
 Jehan, seigneur de Maintenon, chevalier chambellan du 
 Roy, notre sire, et son bailli de Mante et dudit lieu de 
 Meullant : Salut. Savoir faisons, que pour faire et 
 accomplir la justice d'une truye qui avait devore un petit 
 enffant, a convenu faire necessairement les frais, commis- 
 sions et depens ci-apres declares, c'est a savoir : Pour 
 depense faite pour elle dedans le geole, six sols parisis. 
 
 Item, au maitre des hautes-oeuvres, qui vint de Paris k 
 Meullant faire ladite execution par le commandement et 
 ordonnance de nostre dit maistre le bailli et du procureur 
 du roi, cinquante-quatre sols parisis. 
 
 Item, pour la voiture qui la mena a la justice, six sols 
 parisis. 
 
 Item, pour cordes a la Her et haler, deux sols huit 
 deniers parisis. 
 
 Item, pour gans, deux deniers parisis. 
 
 Lesquelles parties font en somme toute soixante neuf 
 sols huit deniers parisis ; et tout ce que dessus est dit 
 nous certifions etre vray par ces pre'sentes scelle'es de notre
 
 Appendix 339 
 
 seel, et a greigneur confirmation et approbation de ce y 
 avons fait mettre le seel de la chatellenie dudit lieu de 
 Meullant, le XV e de mars 1'an 1403. Signd de Baude- 
 mont, avec paraffe, et au dessous est le sceau de la chatel- 
 lenie de Meullant. 
 
 [Extract from the manuscripts of M. Hdrisson, judge 
 of the civil court of Chartres, communicated by M. 
 Lejeune to the Memoires de la Soci'ete Royale des Antl- 
 quaires de France. Tome viii, pp. 433-4.]
 
 34 Appendix 
 
 Receipt, dated Oct. 16, 1408, and signed by Toustain 
 Pincheon, jailer of the royal prisons in the town of 
 Pont de Larche, acknowledging the payment of nineteen 
 sous and six deniers tournois for food furnished to 
 sundry men and to one pig kept in the said prisons on 
 charge of crime. 
 
 Pardevant Jean Gaulvant, tabellion jure* pour le roy 
 nostre sire en la viconte' du Pont de Larche, fut present 
 Toustain Pincheon, geolier des prisons du roy notre sire 
 en la ville du Pont de Larche, lequel cognut avoir eu et 
 recue du roy nostre dit sire, par la main de honnorable 
 homme et saige Jehan Monnet, viconte dudit lieu du 
 Pont de Larche, la somme de 19 sous six deniers tour- 
 nois qui deus lui estoient, c'est assavoir 9 sous six deniers 
 tournois pour avoir trouve' (livre') le pain du roi aux 
 prisonniers debtenus, en cas de crime, es dites prisons. 
 (Here the names of these prisoners are given.) Item a 
 ung pore admend es dictes prisons, le 2i e jour de juing 
 1408 inclus, jusques au 17* jour de juillet apres en 
 suivant exclut que icellui pore fu pendu par les gares a 
 un des posts de la justice du Vaudereuil, a quoy il avoit 
 este' condempne' pour ledit cas par monsieur le bailly de 
 Rouen et les conseuls, es assises du Pont de Larche, par 
 lui tenues le 13 jour dudict mois de juillet, pource que 
 icellui pore avoit muldry et tue' ung pettit enfant, auquel
 
 Appendix 341 
 
 temps il a xxiiii jours, valent audit pris de 2 deniers 
 tournois par jour, 4 sols 2 deniers, et pour avoir trouve 
 et bailie la corde qu'il esconvint a Her icelui pore qu'il 
 reschapast de ladite prison ou il avait estd mis, x deniers 
 tournois. Du 16 Octobre 1408. 
 
 [Derived from manuscripts of the Bibliotheque du Roi, 
 Vide Memoires, cit., pp. 428 and 440-1.]
 
 342 Appendix 
 
 K 
 
 Letters patent, by which Philip the Bold, Duke of 
 Burgundy, on Sept 12, 1379, granted the petition of the 
 friar Humbert de Poutiers, prior of the town of Saint- 
 Marcel-lez-Jussey, and pardoned two herds of swine 
 which had been condemned to suffer the extreme penalty 
 of the law as accomplices in an infanticide committed by 
 three sows. 
 
 Phelippe, filz du Roi de France, due de Bourgoingue, 
 au bailli de noz terres au conte de Bourgoingue, salut. 
 
 Oye la supplication de frere Humbert de Poutiers, 
 prieur de la prieurte de la ville de Saint-Marcel-lez-Jussey, 
 contenant que comme le V e jour de ce present mois de 
 septembre, Perrinot, fils Jehan Muet, dit le Hochebet, 
 pourchier commun de ladite ville, gardant les pors des 
 habitans d'icelle ville ou finaige d'icelle, et au cry de 1'un 
 d'iceulx pors, trois truyes estans entre lesdits pors ayent 
 couru sus audit Perrenot, 1'ayent abattu et mis par terre 
 entre eulx, ainsi comme par Jehan Benoit de Norry qu'il 
 gardoit les pourceaulx dudit suppliant, et par le pere 
 dudit Perrenot a este trouve blessier a mort par lesdites 
 truyes, et si comme icelle Perrenot la confesse en la 
 presence de son dit pere e dudit Jehan Benoit, et assez 
 tost apres il soit eu mort. Et pour ce que ledit suppliant 
 auquel appartient la justice de ladite ville ne fust repris 
 de negligeance son maire arresta tous lesdits pores pour 
 en faire raison et justice en la maniere qu'il appartient, et
 
 Appendix 343 
 
 encore les detient prissonniers tant ceux de ladite ville 
 comme partie de ceulx dudit suppliant, pour ce que dit 
 ledit Jehan Benoit ils furent trouvez ensemble avec lesdites 
 truyes, quand ledit Perrenot fut ainsi blessie. Et ledit 
 prieur nous ait supplie que il nous plaise consentir que en 
 faisant justice de trois ou quatres desdits pores le demeu- 
 rant soit delivre. Nous inclinans a sa requeste, avons de 
 grace especiale ouctroye et consenty, et par ces presentes 
 ouctroyons et consentons que en faisant justice et execu- 
 tion desdites trois truyes et de 1'ung des pourceaulx dudit 
 prieur, que le demeurant desdits pourceaulx soit mis 
 a delivre, nonobstant qu'ils aient este a la mort dudit 
 pourchier. Si vous mandons que de notre presente 
 grace vous faictes et laissiez joyr et user ledit prieur et 
 autres qu' il appartiendra, sans les empescher au grace. 
 
 Donne a Montbar, le XII e jour de septembre de Tan 
 de grace mil CCC LXX IX. Ainsi signe. Par monseig- 
 neur le due : J. Potter. 
 
 [Published by M. Gamier in the Revue des Sod'etes 
 Savantes, Dec. 1866, pp. 476 sqq., from the archives of 
 Cote-d'Or and reprinted by D'Addosio in Bestie Delin- 
 quenti) pp. 277-8.]
 
 344 Appendix 
 
 L 
 
 Sentence pronounced by the Mayor of Loens de 
 Chartres on the twelfth of September, 1606, condemning 
 Guillaume Guyart to be hanged and burned together with 
 a bitch. Extract from the records of the clerk's office of 
 Loing under the date of Sept. 12, 1606. 
 
 Entre le procureur de messieurs 1 demandeur et 
 accusateur au principal et requdrant le proffit et adjudica- 
 tion de troys deffaulx et du quart d'abondant, d'une part, 
 et Guillaume Guyard, accuse, deffendeur et defaillant, 
 d'autre part. 
 
 Veu le proces criminel, charges et informations, decret 
 de prise de corps, adjournement a troys briefs jours, les 
 diets trois deffaulx, le diet quart d'habondant, le recolle- 
 ment des diets tdmoings et recognaissance faicte par les 
 diets temoings de la chienne dont est question, les conclusions 
 dudict procureur, tout veu et eu sur ce conseil, nous 
 disant que lesdicts troys deffaulx et quart d'habondant ont 
 este bien donne's pris et obtenus centre ledict Guyard 
 accuse, attainct et convaincu 
 
 Pour re'paration et punition duquel crime condempnons 
 ledict Guyard estre pendu et estrangld a une potence qui, 
 pour cest effet, sera dressee aux lices du Marche* aux 
 Chevaux de ceste ville de Chartres, au lieu et endroict oil 
 
 1 Under this term are included the dean, canons, and chapter of 
 the Cathedral of Chart res.
 
 Appendix 345 
 
 les diet sieurs ont tout droit de justice. Et auparavant 
 ladicte execution de mort, que ladicte chienne sera 
 assommee par 1'exe'cuteur de la haute justice audict lieu, 
 et seront les corps morts, tant dudict Guyard que de la 
 dicte chienne brules et mis en cendres, si le diet Guyard 
 peut estre pris et apprehende en sa personne, sy non pour 
 le regard du diet Guyard, sera la sentence execute par 
 effigie en un tableau qui sera mis et attache a ladicte 
 potence, et declarons tous et chascuns ses biens acquis et 
 confisques a qui il appartiendra, sur cieux prealablement 
 pris la somme de cent cinquante livres d'amende que 
 nous avons adjugees auxdicts sieurs, sur laquelle somme 
 seront pris les fraicts de justice. Prononce' et execute 
 par effigie, pour le regard du diet Guyard les jour et an 
 cy dessus. Signe Guyot. 
 
 [A true copy of the original extract extant in the office 
 of M. Herisson, judge of the civil court of Chartres, made 
 by M. Lejeune and communicated to the Societe Royale 
 des Antiquaires de France. Vide Mdmoires of this 
 Society, cit, pp. 436-7-]
 
 346 Appendix 
 
 M 
 
 Sentence pronounced by the judge of Savigny on 
 Jan. 1457, condemning to death an infanticidal sow. 
 Also the sentence of confiscation pronounced nearly a 
 month later on the six pigs of the said sow for complicity 
 in her crime. 
 
 Jours tenus au lieu de Savigny, pres des fousse's du 
 Chastelet de dit Savigny, par noble homme Nicolas 
 Quarroillon, ecuier, juge dudit lieu de Savigny, et ce le 
 io e jour du moys de Janvier 1457, presens maistre 
 Philebert Quarret, Nicolas Grant-Guillaume, Pierre Borne, 
 Pierre Chailloux, Germain des Muliers, Andre Gaudriot, 
 Jehan Bricard, Guillaume Gabrin, Philebert Hogier, et 
 plusieurs autres tesmoins a ce appelles et requis, 1'an et 
 jour dessus dit. 
 
 Huguemin Martin, procureur de noble damoiselle 
 Katherine de Barnault, dame dudit Savigny, demandeur 
 a 1'encontre de Jehan Bailly, alias Valot dudit Savigny, 
 et promoteur des causes d'office dudit lieu de Savigny, 
 demandeur a 1'encontre de Jehan Bailly, alias Valot dudit 
 Savigny deffendeur, a 1'encontre duquel par la voix et 
 organ de honorable homme et saige M r . Benoit Milot 
 d'Ostun, licencie en loys et bachelier en de'cret, conse'illier 
 de monseigneur le due de Bourgoingne, a Ae dit et 
 propose" que le mardi avant Noel dernier passe, une truye, 
 et six coichons ses suignens, que sont presentement 
 prispnniers de ladite dame, comme ce qu'ils etd prins en
 
 Appendix 347 
 
 flagrant delit, ont commis et perpetre mesmement ladicte 
 truye murtre et homicide en la personne de Jehan 
 Martin en aige de cinq ans, fils de Jehan Martin dudit 
 Savigny, pour la faulte et culpe dudit Jehan Bailly, alias 
 Valot, requerant ledit procureur et promoteur desdites 
 causes d'office de ladite justice de madite dame, que 
 ledit de'fendeur repondit es chouses dessus dites, desquelles 
 apparaissoit a souffisance, et lequel par nous a este somme 
 et requis ce il vouloit avoher ladite truhie et ses 
 suignens, sur le cas avant dit, et sur ledit cas luy a este 
 faicte sommacion par nous juge avant dit, pour la 
 premiere, deuxieme et tierce fois, que s'il vouloit rien 
 dire pourquoi justice ne s'en deust faire 1'on estoit tout 
 prest de les oir en tout ce qu'il vouldrait dire touchant 
 la pugnycion et execution de justice que se doit faire de 
 ladite truhie ; veu ledit cas, lequel deffendeur a dit et 
 respondu qui'l ne vouloit rien dire pour le present et pour 
 ce ait este precede en la maniere qui s'ensuit ; c'est 
 assavoir que pour la partie dudit demandeur, avons este 
 requis instamment de dire droit en ceste cause, en la 
 presence dudit defendeur present et non contredisant, 
 pourquoy nous juge, avant dit, savoir faisons a tous que 
 nous avons precede et donne nostre sentence deffinitive 
 en la maniere que s'ensuit ; c'est assavoir que veu le cas 
 lequel est tel comme a est^ propose pour la partie dudit 
 demandeur, et duquel appert a souffisance tant par 
 tesmoing que autrement dehuement hue. Aussi conseil 
 avec saiges et practiciens, et aussi consider^ en ce cas 
 1'usance et coustume du pai's de Bourgoingne, ai'ant 
 Dieu devant nos yeulx, nous disons et pronunc.ons 
 par notre dite sentence, de'clairons la tryue de Jehan 
 Martin, de Savigny, estre confisque'e a la justice de Madame 
 de Savigny, pour estre mise a justice et au dernier
 
 348 Appendix 
 
 supplice, et estre pendus par les pieds derriers a ung 
 arbre esprone en la justice de Madame de Savigny, 
 considere que la justice de madite dame n'est mie 
 presentement elevee, et icelle truye prendre mort audit 
 arbre esprone, et ansi le disons et prononc.ons par notre 
 dicte sentence et a droit et au regard des coichons de 
 ladite truye pour ce qui n'appert aucunement que 
 iceuls coichons ayent mangies dudit Jehan Martin, 
 combien que aient estes troves ensanglante's, Ton remet 
 la cause d'iceulx coichons aux tres jours, et avec ce Ton 
 est content de les rendre et bailler audit Jehan Bailly, 
 en baillant caucion de les rendre s'il est trove qu'il 
 aient mangiers dudit Jehan Martin, en pai'ant les 
 poutures, et fait Ton savoir a tous, sous peine de 
 1'amende et de 100 sols tournois qu'ils le dieut et 
 declairent dedans les autres jours, de laquelle nostre 
 dicte sentence, apres la prononciation d'icelle, ledit pro- 
 cureur de ladite dame de Savigny et promoteur des causes 
 d'office par la voix dudit maistre Benoist Milot, advocat 
 de ladite dame ; et aussi ledit procureur a requis et 
 demande acte de nostre dicte court a lui estre faicte, 
 laquelle luy avons ouctroye, et avec ce instrument, je, 
 Huguenin de Montgachot, clerc, notaire publicque de la 
 court de monseigneur le due de Bourguoigne, en la 
 presence des tesmoings ci-dessus nommes, je lui ai 
 ouctroye, ce fait Fan et jour dessus dit et presens les 
 dessus tesmoings. Ita est. Ainsi signe, Mongachot, 
 avec paraphe, et de suite est e'crit : 
 
 Item, en oultre, nous juge dessus nomme, savoir 
 faisons que incontinent apres nostre dicte sentence 
 ainsi donne'e par nous les an et jour, et en la presence 
 des temoings que dessus, avons somme et requis ledit 
 Jehan Bailli, se il vouloit avoher lesdits coichons, et
 
 Appendix 349 
 
 se il vouloit bailler caucion pour avoir recreance 
 d'iceulx; lequel a dit et rdpondu qui ne les avohait 
 aucunement, et qui ni demandait rien en iceulx 
 coichons ; et qui s'en rapportoit a ce que en ferions ; 
 pourquoy sont demeurez a la dicte justice et seignorie 
 dudit Savigny, de laquelle chouse ledit Huguenin 
 Martin, procureur et promoteur des causes d'offices, 
 nous en a demande acte de court, lequel lui nous 
 avons ouctroye et ouctroyons par ces presentes, et 
 avec ce ledict procureur de ladicte dame, a moy 
 notaire subescript, m'en demanda instrument, lequel 
 je luy ait ouctroye' en la presence desdits tesmoings 
 cy-dessus nomme's. 
 
 Item, en apres, nous Nicolas Quaroillon, juge avant 
 dit, savoir faisons a tous que incontinent apres les 
 chouses dessus dictes, avons faict delivrer realement et 
 de fait ladicte truye a maistre Etienne Poinceau, 
 maistre de la haute justice, demeurant a Chalons-sur- 
 Saone, pour icelle mettre a execution selon la forme 
 et teneur de nostre dicte sentence, laquelle de'livrance 
 d'icelle triihie faicte par nous comme dit est,. incontinent 
 ledit maistre Estienne a mene sur une chairette ladicte 
 truye a ung chaigne esprone', estant en la justice de ladite 
 dame Savigny, et en icelluy chaigne esprone, icelluy 
 maistre Estienne a pendu ladite truye par les piez 
 derriers ; en mectant a execution deue nostre dicte 
 sentence, selon la forme et teneur de laquelle delivrance 
 et execution d'icelle truye, ledit Huguenin Martin, pro- 
 cureur de ladicte dame de Savigny nous a demandd acte 
 de nostre dicte court a lui estre faicte et donnde, laquelle 
 luy avons ouctroyee, et avec ce a moi, notaire subscript, 
 m'a demand^ instrument ledit procureur a luy estre 
 donne'e, je luy ai ouctroye' en la presence des temoings
 
 350 Appendix 
 
 cy-dessus nommez, ce fait les au et jour dessus ditz. 
 Ainsi signe* Mongachot, avec paraphe. 
 
 Nearly a month later, on " the Friday after the Feast of 
 the Purification of Our Lady the Virgin " (which occurred 
 on Feb. 2.), " the six little porklets or sucklings " were 
 brought to trial. The following is \heproch verbal. 
 
 Jours tenus au lieu de Savigny, sur la chausse'e de 
 1'Estang dudit Savigny, par noble homme Nicolas 
 Quarroillon, escuier, juge dudit lieu de Savigny, pour 
 noble damoiselle Katherine de Barnault, dame dudit 
 Savigny, et ce le vendredy apres la feste de la Purification 
 Notre Dame Vierge, prdsens Guillaume Martin, Guiot de 
 Layer, Jehan Martin, Pierre Tiroux et Jehan Bailly, 
 tesmoings, etc. 
 
 Veue les sommacions et requisitions faicte par nous 
 juge de noble damoiselle Katherine de Barnault, dame 
 de Savigny, a Jehan Bailly alias Valot de advene* on 
 repudie* les coichons de la truye nouvellement mise 
 a execution par justice a raison du murtre commis et 
 perpetre' par la dicte truye en la personne de Jehan 
 Martin, lequel Jehan Bailli a este remis de advoher 
 lesdites coichons et de baillier caucion d'iceulx coichons 
 rendre, s'il estoit trouvd qu'ils feussions culpables du 
 delict avant diet commis par ladicte truye et de payer les 
 poutures, comme appert par acte de nostre dicte court, 
 et autres instrumens souffisans ; pourquoi le tout veu en 
 conseil avec saiges, de'clairons et pronuncons par nostre 
 sentence definitive, et a droit : iceulx coichons computer 
 et appartenir comme biens vaccans a ladite dame de 
 Savigny et les luy adjugeons comme raison, 1'usence et 
 la coustume de pai's le vueilt. De laquelle nostre dicte
 
 Appendix 351 
 
 sentence, ledit procureur de ladite dame en a demand^ 
 acte, de nostre dicte court a luy estre donne'e et ouctroye'e. 
 Avec ce en a demande instrument a moy notaire sub- 
 script, lequel il luy a ouctroye' en la presence des dessus 
 nommes. Signd Mongachot avec paraphe. 
 
 [Extract from the archives of Monjeu and Dependen- 
 cies, belonging to M. Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau. 
 (Savigny-sur-Etang, boete 250, liasse i, 2, & 3, etc.) 
 Vide Memoires, cit., pp. 441-5.]
 
 352 Appendix 
 
 N 
 
 Sentence pronounced April 18, 1499, in a criminal 
 prosecution instituted before the Bailiff of the Abbey of 
 Josaphat, in the Commune of Seves, near Chartres, 
 against a pig condemned to be hanged for having killed 
 an infant. In this case the owners of the pig were fined 
 eighteen francs for negligence, because the child was 
 their fosterling. 
 
 Le lundi 18 avril 1499. 
 
 Veu le proces criminel faict par-devant nous a la 
 requeste du procureur de messieurs le religieux, abb et 
 convent de losaphat, a 1'encontre de lehan Delalande 
 et sa femme, prisonniers esprisons de ceans, pour raison 
 de la mort advenue a la personne d'une jeune enfant, 
 nominee Gilon, agde de un an et demi ou environ ; laquelle 
 enfant avoit ete baillee a nourrice par sa mere : ledict 
 meurtre advenu et commis par un pourceau de 1'aage 
 de trois mois ou environ, aulxdits Delalande et sa femme 
 appartenant ; les confessions desdicts Delalande et sa 
 femme ; les informations par nous et le greffier de ladite 
 jurisdiction faictes a la requete dudict procureur ; le tout 
 veu et en sur ce conseil aulx saiges, ledit Jehan Delalande 
 et sa femme, avons condampn'es et condampnons en V amende 
 envers de justice de dix-huit franz, qu'il a convenus pour ce 
 faire, tel que de raison, et a tenir prison jusqu'a plein 
 payement et satisfaction d'iceulx a tout le moins qu'ils 
 avoient bailie bonne et seure caution d'iceulx. 
 
 Et en tant que toucJie le diet pourceau, pour les causes
 
 Appendix 353 
 
 contenues et e^ablies audict proces, nous les awns con- 
 dampn'e et condampnons a tre pendu et execute par justice^ 
 en la jurisdiction des mes diets seigneurs, par notre 
 sentence definitive, et a droit. 
 
 Donne sous la centre seel aux causes dudict baillage, 
 les an et jour que susdicts. Signe C. Briseg avec 
 paraphe. 
 
 [The complete record of this trial contains the minutest 
 details of the proceedings, ending with the execution of 
 the pig, and was taken from the archives of the Abbey 
 Josaphat at the time of the Revolution by M. B., 
 Secretary-general of the department. Since then it has 
 disappeared ; but this copy of the original, made at that 
 time, is declared by M. Lejeune to be perfectly exact. 
 Vide Mdmoires, cit., pp. 434-5.]
 
 354 Appendix 
 
 O 
 
 Sentence pronounced June 14, 1494, by the grand 
 mayor of the church and monastery of St. Martin de 
 Laon, condemning a pig to be hanged and strangled for 
 infanticide committed on the fee-farm of Clermont- 
 lez-Montcornet. 
 
 A tous ceulx qui ces pre'sentes lettres verront ou orront, 
 Jehan Lavoisier licentie ez loix, et grand mayeur de 
 I'e'glise et monastere de monsieur St. Martin de Laon, 
 ordre de Pre'montre', et les echevins de ce meme lieu ; 
 comme il nous eust dte apportd et affirmd par le procureur- 
 fiscal ou syndic des religieux, abbd et convent de Saint- 
 Martin de Laon, qu'en la cense de Clermont-lez-Mont- 
 cornet, appartenant en toute justice haulte, moyenne et 
 basse auxdits relligieux, ung jeune pourceaulx eust 
 e'strangle' et defacie ung jeune enfant estant au berceau, 
 fils de Jehan Lenfant, vachier de ladite cense de Clermont, 
 et de Gillon sa femme, nous advertissant et nous reque'r- 
 ant a cette cause, que sur ledit cas voulussions proce'der, 
 comme justice at raison le de'siroit et requerroit ; et que 
 depuis, afin de savoir et cognoitre la ve'rite' dudit cas, 
 eussion oui et examine' par serment, Gillon, femme dudit 
 Lenfant, Jehan Benjamin, et Jehan Daudancourt, censiers 
 de ladite cense, lesquels nous eussent dit et affirme' par 
 leur serment et conscience, que le lendemain de Pasques 
 dernier passe' ledict Lenfant estant en la garde de ses 
 bestes, ladicte Gillon sa femme desjettoit de ladicte 
 cense, pour aller au village de Dizy , ayant delaissd
 
 Appendix 355 
 
 en sa maison ledict petit enfant Elle le renchargea 
 
 a une sienne fille, agde de neuf ans pendant et 
 
 durant lequel temps ladite fille s'en alia jouer autour 
 de ladite cense, et laissd ledit enfant couche* en son 
 berceau ; et ledit temps durant, ledit pourceaulz entra 
 
 dedans ladite maison et defigura et mangea le 
 
 visage et gorge dudit enfant Tot apres ledit 
 
 enfant, au moyen des morsures et devisagement que lui 
 fit ledit pourceaulz, de ce siecle trdpassa : savoir faisons 
 
 Nous, en detestation et horreur dudit cas, et 
 
 arm d'exemplaire et garde justice, avons dit, jugd, sen- 
 tencie', prenoncd et appoint^, que ledit pourceaulz estant 
 detenu prisonnier et enferme en ladite abbaye, sera par le 
 maistre des hautes-oeuvres, pendu et estrangld, en une 
 fourche de bois, aupres et joignant des fourchee patibu- 
 laires et haultes justices desdits relligieux, estant aupres 
 
 de leur cense d'Avin En temoing de ce nous 
 
 avons scelle' ces presentes de notre seel. 
 
 Ce fut fait le quatorzieme jour de juing, 1'an 1494, et 
 scelle en cire rouge ; et sur le dos est dcrit : 
 
 Sentence pour ung pourceaulz execute* par justice, 
 admend en la cense de Clermont, et e'trangle' en une 
 fourche les gibez d'Avin. 
 
 [M. Boileau de Maulaville, in L'Annuaire de I'Aisne 
 1812, p. 88. Vide Mdmoires, cit., pp. 428 and 446-7.]
 
 356 Appendix 
 
 Sentence pronounced, March 27, 1567, by the royal 
 notary and proctor of the bailiwick and bench of the 
 court of judicatory of Senlis, condemning a sow with 
 a black snout to be hanged for her cruelty and ferocity 
 in murdering a girl of four months, and forbidding the 
 inhabitants of the said seignioralty to let such beasts 
 run at large on penalty of an arbitrary fine. 
 
 A tous ceulx qui ces prdsentes lettres verront, Jehan 
 Lobry, notaire royal et procureur au bailliage et siege 
 pre'sidial de Senlis, bailly et garde et seigneurie de Saint- 
 Nicolas d'Acy, les le dit Senlis, pour M.M. les religieux, 
 prieur et coivent du diet lieu, salut ; savoir faisons : 
 
 Veu le proces extraordinairement fait a la requete du 
 Procureur de la seigneurie du diet Saint-Nicolas, pour 
 raison de la mort advenue a une jeune fille agee de 
 quatre mois ou environ, enfant de Lye'nor Darmeige et 
 Magdeleine Mahieu sa femme, demeurant au diet Saint - 
 Nicolas, trouve'e avoir este' mangee et devore'e en la tete, 
 main senestre et au dessus de la mamelle dextre par une 
 truye ayant le museau noire, appartenant a Louis Mahieu, 
 frere de la dite femme et son proche voisin ; 
 
 Le proces verbal de la visitation du diet enfant en la 
 presence de son parrain et de sa marraine qui 1'ont 
 recogneu ; 
 
 Les informations faites pour raison du dit cas, interro- 
 gatoires des dits Louis Mahieu et sa femme, avec la
 
 Appendix 357 
 
 visitation faicte de la dicte truye a 1'instant du dit cas 
 advenu et tout consider^ en conseil, il a 6t6 conclu et 
 advisd par justice que POUR LA CRUAUTE ET FEROCITE 
 COMMISE PAR LA DITE TRUYE, elle sera extermine'e par 
 mort et pour ce faire sera pendue par 1'executeur de la 
 haulte justice en ung arbre estant dedans les fins et 
 mottes de la dicte justice sur le grande chemin rendant 
 de Saint-Firman au dit Senlis, en faisant deffenses a tous 
 habitans et sujet des terres et seigneurie du dit Saint- 
 Nicolas de ne plus laisser echapper telle et semblables 
 bestes sans bonne et seure garde, sous peine d'amende 
 arbitraire et de pugnition corporelle s'ily dchoit, sauf et 
 sans prejudice a faire droit sur les conclusions prinses 
 par le dit Procureur a 1'encontre des dits Mahieu et sa 
 femme ainsi que de raison, au tdmoin de quoy nous 
 avon scelle' les pre'sentes du seel de la dicte justice. 
 
 Ce fu faist le jeudi 27 e jour de Mars 1557 et executd 
 ledit jour par 1'executeur de la haulte justice du dit 
 Senlis. 
 
 [Dom. Grenier, Manuscrits de la Bibliothlque Nationak 
 de Paris, tome xx. p. 87. Quoted by D'Addosio, who, 
 however, confounds the prosecution of 1567 with that 
 of 1499.]
 
 358 Appendix 
 
 Q 
 
 Sentence of death upon a bull, May 16, 1499, by the 
 bailiff of the Abbey of Beaupre', for furiously killing 
 Lucas Dupont, a young man of fourteen or fifteen years 
 of age. 
 
 A tous ceux qui ces presentes lettres verront, Jean 
 Sondar, Lieutenant du Bailly du temporel de I'dglise 
 & abbaye ndtre Dame de Beaupre's de 1'ordre de Cisteaux, 
 pour venerables & discretes personnes & mes tres- 
 honorez seigneurs, messeigneurs les religieux abbe* & 
 convent de ladite abbaye, salut. Comme a la requeste 
 du procureur de mesdits seigneurs, & par leur justice 
 temporelle qu'ils ont en leur terre & seigneurie du 
 Caurroy eut e'te' nagaires prins & mis en la main d'icelle 
 leur justice ung thorreau de poil rouge, appartenant a 
 Jean Boullet censier & fermier de mesdits seigneurs, 
 demeurant en leur maison & cense dudit Caurroy, 
 lequel thorreau &ant aux champs & sur le territoiiere 
 d'icelle dglise, auroit par furiosite' occis & mis a mort un 
 joine fils, nomme' Lucas Dupont, de 1'age de quatorze a 
 quinze ans, ou environ, serviteur dudit censier, lequel 
 il avoit mis a la garde de ces bestes a corne, entre les- 
 quelles estoit ledit thorreau. Duquel thorreau ledit 
 procureur de mesdits seigneurs requeroit la justice 
 estre faite, & qu'il fut execute" jusqu'a mort inclusive- 
 ment par la justice de mesdits seigneurs pour occasion 
 de icelui crimme de omicide & de la detestation d'iceluy.
 
 Appendix 359 
 
 Sur quoy enqueste & information eussent 6t6 faites de 
 la forme & maniere iceluy homicide, par laquelle ledit 
 procureur nous eust requis sur ce luy estre fait droit. 
 Savoir faisons que veu laditte enqueste & information & 
 sur tout en conseil & advis, nous par nostre sentence & 
 jugement, avons dies & jugid, que pour raison de I'omi- 
 cide, dont dessus est touchie, fait par ledit thorreau en 
 la personne d'iceluy Lucas, & pour la detestation du 
 crime d'iceluy homicide, ledit thorreau nomme confisque 
 a mesdits seigneurs sera execute jusques a mort inclusive- 
 ment par leurdite justice, & pendu a une fourche ou 
 potence es mettes de leurdite terre & seigneurie dudit 
 Caurroy, aupres du lieu ou solicit estre assise la justice. 
 Et ad ce le avons condamne & condamnons. En 
 tesmoing de ce avons mis nostre seel a ces lettres qui 
 furent faites & pronunchies audit lieu du Caurroy en la 
 presence de Guillaume Gave du Mottin, Jehan Custien 
 I'aisne', Jehan Henry, Jehan Boullet, hommes & sub- 
 jets de mesdits seigneurs, Jehan Charles, & Clement le 
 Carpentier, & plusieurs autres les seizieme jour de May 
 Tan mil quatre cens quatre-vingt-dix-neuf. Ainsi signe", 
 Ileugles, ad ce commis. 
 
 [The original records of this trial for homicide are in 
 the archives of the Abbey of Beauprd. Vide Voyage 
 Litteraire de deux Religieux Benedictins de la Congrega- 
 tion de St. Maur. Seconde Partie, pp. 166-7. Paris, 
 1717. The Benedictins were Dom. Edmond Martene 
 and Dom. Ursin Durand.]
 
 360 Appendix 
 
 R 
 
 Scene from Racine's comedy Les Plaideurs, in which a 
 dog is tried and condemned to the galleys for stealing a 
 capon. 
 
 After the accused had been found guilty, his counsel 
 brings in the puppies and thus appeals to the compassion 
 of the court : 
 
 " Venez, famille desolde ; 
 
 Venez, pauvres enfants qu'on veut rendre orphelins ; 
 
 Venez faire parler vos esprits enfantins. 
 
 Oui, messieurs, vous voyez ici notre misere ; 
 
 Nous sommes orphelins, rendez-nous notre pere, 
 
 Notre pere par qui nous fumes engendrds, 
 
 Notre pere qui nous .... 
 
 DAUDIN. 
 Tirez, tirez, tirez. 
 
 L'lNTIME. 
 
 Notre pere, messieurs .... 
 DAUDIN. 
 
 Tirez done, Quels vacarmes ! 
 Us ont pissd partout. 
 
 L'lNTIME. 
 
 Monsieur, voyez nos larmes. 
 
 DAUDIN. 
 
 Ouf ! je me sens deja pris de compassion. 
 Ce que c'est qu' & propos toucher la passion ! 
 Je suis bien empeche'. La ve'rite' me presse ; 
 Le crime est ave're', lui-meme il le confesse. 
 Mais, s'il est condamne', 1'embarras est dgal ; 
 Voilii bien des enfants re'duits a 1'hopital." 
 
 Les Plaideurs, Act in, sc. 3.
 
 Appendix 361 
 
 Record of the decision of the Law Faculty of the 
 University of Leipsic condemning a cow to death for 
 having killed a woman at Machern near Leipsic, July 20, 
 1621. 
 
 Ao 1621 den 20 July ist Hanss Fritzchen weib 
 Catharina alhier zu Machern wohnende von Ihrer eigen 
 Mietkuhe, 1 da sie gleich hochleibss schwanger gang, auff 
 Ihren Eigenen hofe zu Tode gestossen worden. Vber 
 welch vnerhorten Fall der Juncker Friederich von 
 Lindenau, als Erbsass diesess ortes, in der Jurisstischen 
 Facultet zu Leipzig sich dariiber dess Rechtes belernet : 
 Welche am Ende dess Vrtelss diese wort also aussgespro- 
 chen : So wird die Kuhe, als abschewlich thier, an Einen 
 abgelegenen oden ort billig gefiihret, daselbst Erschlagen 
 oder Erschossen, vnnd vnabgedecht begraben. Christoph 
 Hain domalss zu Selstad wohnend hat sie hinder der 
 Schafferey Erschlagen vnd begraben, welchess geschehen 
 den 5. Augusti auff den Abend, nach Eintreibung dess 
 Hirtenss zwischen 8 vnd 9 vhren. 
 
 [Extract from the parish-register of Machern, near 
 Leipsic, printed in Anzeiger fur Kunde der deutschen 
 Vorzeit. No. 4, April 1880, col. 102.] 
 
 1 Mietkuhe, a cow pastured or wintered for pay.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 ABELE VON LILIENBERG, MATTHIAS : Metamorphosis 
 Telae Judiciariae, Das ist : Seltsame Gerichts- Handel, 
 etc.; Sthed., Niirnberg, 1712. ist ed., 1667. The 
 funny incidents narrated in this work are cited as 
 "queer judicial procedures " in Joh. Weidneri Apoph- 
 thegmata, Part in., No. 69. Abele was evidently a 
 great humorist, and must have been a jolly member 
 of the "Hochlobl. Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft," to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 ADDOSIO, CARLO D' : Bestie Delinquenti. Napoli, 1892. 
 
 AGNEL, EMILE : Curiosite's judiciaires et historiques du 
 Moyen-Age. Paris, 1858. Only Part I. published. 
 
 AMIRA, KARL VON : Thierstrafen und Thierprocesse. 
 Innsbruck, 1891. Printed originally in Mittheilungen 
 des Instituts fiir Oestterreichische Geschichtsforschung, 
 xii., pp. 546-601. 
 
 ANGELIS, FRANCISCO GIUSEPPE DE : De Delictis et 
 Poenis. Opera Omnia. Vol. i., p. 76. Napoli, 1783. 
 
 Anzeiger fiir Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, xxvii. April, 
 No. 4, p. 102. Niirnberg, 1880. 
 
 AQUINAS, THOMAS. See THOMAS. 
 
 ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, H. D' : Les excommunications 
 d'animaux. Art. in Revue des Questions Historiques, 
 v., pp. 275-280. Paris, 1868. 
 
 AYRAULT, PIERRE: Des Procez faicts au cadaver, aux 
 cendres, a la me'moire, aux bestes brutes, aux choses 
 inanime'es et aux contumax. Angers, small 4to, 1591. 
 This work is opposed to such prosecutions, and is 
 reprinted as an appendix to the same author's L'Ordre, 
 362
 
 Bibliography 363 
 
 Formalitd, et Instruction Judiciaire, etc. Paris, 1598, 
 1604, 1610. Lyon, 1642. For an account of Pierre 
 Ayrault see Eloge de Pierre Ayrault prononcd devant 
 le cour royale d'Angers, a 1'audience solonnelle de 
 rentre*e le 6 novembre, 1844, pas M. Felix Belloc, 
 avocat-gene'ral. 
 
 AZPILCUET A, MARTIN : Opera. 3 vols., fol. Lyon, 1589; 
 6 vols. 410, Ven., 1601, 2 ; 5 vols., Col., 1616. In his 
 Consiliorum, lib. v. De Senten. Excom. Consil. 52, he 
 criticises the views of Chassene'e. The author is com- 
 monly known as Dr. Navarre. 
 
 BAER, A. : Der Verbrecher in anthropologischer Bezie- 
 hung. Leipzig, 1893. 
 
 BAILLY, GASPARD : Discours des Sorciers. 
 
 Traite" des Monitoires, avec un plaidoyer centre les 
 
 Insects. Lyon, 1668. 
 
 This work contains a full account of the method of 
 procedure in the penal prosecution of animals. 
 
 BEAUMANOIR, PHILIPPE DE : Les Coutumes de Beauvoisis. 
 Paris, 1690. New edition by Le Comte Beugnot. 1842. 
 
 BENEDICT/US, GUILIELMUS : Tractatus Criminalis. Lug- 
 duni. 1562. 
 
 BENEDIKT, M. : Anatomische Studien in Verbrecher 
 Gehirnen. Wien, 1879. Translated into English. 
 New York, 1881. 
 
 BERRIAT-SAINT-PRIX : Rapport et Recherches sur le 
 Proces et Jugemens relatives aux Animaux. In 
 Me'moires de la Socie'te' Royale des Antiquaires de 
 France. Tome viii., pp., 403-450. Paris, 1827. 
 
 BISCHOFF, THEODOR L. W. : Das Hirngewicht des 
 Menschen. Eine Studie. Bonn, 1880. 
 
 BOERIUS : Decisiones aureae Parlamenti Burdegalensis. 
 Dec. 316. Nos. 3, 4, 6. Lyon, 1620.
 
 364 Bibliography 
 
 BONIFACE, H : Recueil d'Arrets notables. Liv. iv. 
 Traite" des Matieres Criminelles, p. 31. Paris, 
 
 1785- 
 
 BOUCHEL, LAURENT : La Bibliotheq * ou Thresor du 
 Droict Francois. Art. Bestail. Paris, 1 115. New 
 and enlarged edition, 3 torn., Paris, 1671. 
 
 BOUGEANT, PERE G. H. : Amusement Philosophique 
 sur le Language des Bestes. Paris, 1739. Published 
 anonymously, but written by the Jesuit Pere Bougeant. 
 
 BOUTHORS, A. : Coutumes locales . . . d' Amiens, i., 
 
 PP- 354 358. 1845- 
 BREGENZER, IGNAZ : Thier-Ethik. Darstellung der sitt- 
 
 lichen und rechtlichen Beziehungen zwischen Mensch 
 
 und Thier. Bamberg, 1894. 
 BRILLON, P. J. : Dictionnaire des Arrets. Art. Be'tail. 
 
 Paris, 1711. 
 BRUNNER, H. : tlber absichtslose Missethaten im alt- 
 
 deutschen Strafrechte. Sitzungsberichte der Berliner 
 
 Akademie, xxxv., 1890, pp. 834-839. 
 BUCHNER, AUGUST: Miscellanea Curiosa. 1686. 
 CANNAERT : Bydragen tot de kennis van het oude Straf- 
 
 recht in Vlanderen. 3rd. ed., Gent, 1835. 
 CARPZOV, BENEDICT : Practica Nova Rerum Criminalium. 
 
 Wittenberg, 1635. See especially Cap. De Crimine 
 
 Parricidii. 
 CHASSENEE, BARTHOLOMEW : Consilium Primum, quod 
 
 tractatus jure dici potest propter multiplicem et 
 
 reconditam doctrinam, ubi luculenter et accurate 
 
 tractatur quaestio ilia : De excommunicatione ani- 
 
 malium insectorum. 1531; 1511; 1588. 
 
 (Chassene'e was afterwards first president of the Par- 
 
 lement de Provence, a position corresponding to chief 
 
 justice.)
 
 Bibliography 365 
 
 CHORIER, NICOLAS : Histoire gdne'rale de Dauphine. 2 
 
 torn. (ii. p. 712). Valence, 1778. 
 La Jurisprudence du Jurisconsult Guy Pape dans 
 
 ces Decisions. Avec plusieurs remarkes importantes 
 
 par McN. C., etc. Liv. iv. Sect. 8, Art. 14. 1769. 
 CLARUS, JULIUS : Opera Omnia. Sive practica civilis 
 
 atque criminalis, etc. [Geneva], 1637. 
 CROLLANZA : Storia del Contado di Chiavenna, pp. 
 
 445-899. 
 DAMHOUDER, JODOCUS : Rerum Criminalium Praxis. 
 
 Antwerp, 1562. 
 DESNOYERS, J. : Recherches sur la coutume d'exorciser 
 
 et d'excommunier les insectes et autres animaux 
 
 nuisibles a Fagriculture. Paris, 1853. 
 
 Originally published in Bulletin du comite' his- 
 
 torique des monuments e'crits de Thistoire de la 
 
 France. 
 DESSAIX, A. : L'excommunication des Glaciers. Revue 
 
 des Traditions Populaires. Vol. v. 1890. 
 DOPLERI, JACOBI : Theatrum Poenarum, Suppliciorum 
 
 et Executionum Criminalium, oder Schau-Platz derer 
 
 Leibes- und Lebens-Straffen, etc. Sondershausen, 
 
 Anno MDCXCIII. 
 DULAURE, J. H. : Histoire physique, civile et morale de 
 
 Paris. 7th ed. in. p. 298; 308. Paris, 1856. 
 DUMERIL, H. : Les Animaux et les Lois, pp. 6-13. Paris, 
 
 1880. 
 DURET, JEAN : Traicte des Peines et Amendes tant 
 
 pour les Matieres criminelles que civiles. Lyon, 1573 ; 
 
 1603; 1610. 
 EVEILLON, JACQUES : Traitd des Excommunications et 
 
 Monitoires. Chap. 39, vol. ii., pp. 436-449. Rouen, 
 
 1712.
 
 366 Bibliography 
 
 FERRI, ENRICO : I Nuovi Orizzonti del Diritto e della 
 
 Procedura penale. 
 Das Verbrechen in seiner Abhangigkeit von dem 
 
 jahrlichen Temperatunveschsel. Berlin, 1882. 
 FEVRET, CHARLES : Traite de 1'Abus. Lib. vii., ch. 2. 
 
 No. 38. 
 FLESCH, M. : Untersuchungen iiber Verbrecher-Gehirne. 
 
 Wiirzburg, 1882. 
 FRANCK, Wilhelm : Geschichte der Ehemaligen Reichs- 
 
 stadt Oppenheim am Rhein. Darmstadt, 1859. 
 FRIEDMANN, F. : Verbrechen im Roman und auf der 
 
 Biihne. Berlin, 1890. 
 FRIEDRICH, GEORG : Die Krankheit des Willens vom 
 
 Standpunkt der Psychologic aus betrachtet. Miinchen, 
 
 1885. 
 
 GALTON, F. : Inquiries into Human Faculty in its De- 
 velopment. London, 1883. 
 GAROFALO, R. : La Criminologie. Paris, 1888. 
 GIERKE, O. : Humor im deutschen Recht. 2 aufl. 1886, 
 
 PP- 23-25. 6l - 
 GIURIATI, DOMENICO : Gli Errori Giudiziari, Diagnosi 
 
 e Rimedi. Milano, 1893. (See especially chapter 
 
 iv.) 
 GRENUS, THEODORE BARON DE: Documents relatifs k 
 
 1'Histoire du Pays de Vaud. p. 160. 
 GRIMM, JACOB: Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer. 2 aufl. 
 
 Gottingen, 1844. 
 GROSLEE : Ephe'merides. Tom 11., pp. 153-168. Ed. 
 
 1811. 
 
 Guidonis Papae Decisiones. q. 238. 
 HEFFTER, AUG. WILH. : Athenaische Gerichtsverfassung. 
 
 Koln, 1822. 
 HOTTINGER, JOH. HEINRICH : Historia Ecclesiastica
 
 Bibliography 367 
 
 Novi Testamenti. Seculum xv., pars quarta, pp. 317- 
 
 21. Tigvri (Zurich), 1667. 
 JETS : Over het oude Strafregt in Belgie. p. 89. Brussels, 
 
 1826. 
 LACASSAGNE, A. : De la Criminalite* chez les Animaux. 
 
 Revue Scientifique. January 14, 1882. Cf, Kosmos, 
 
 Zeitschrift fiir Entwicklungslehre, 1882. pp. 264-67. 
 LA HONTAN, BARON DE : Voyages. Lettre xi., p. 79. 
 
 Treats of Excommunication of Turtle-Doves in 
 
 Canada. 
 LALANNE, L. : Curiosite's des Traditions. Paris, 1847. 
 
 PP- 429-43 6 - 
 LAVANDERIUS, PETRUS : Tractatus de Doctoribus. Pars 
 
 i., quaest. 18. 
 
 LEBEUF, L'ABBE : Histoire de Paris, i. ix,, 400. 
 LEBRUN, PIERRE : Histoire Critique des Pratiques 
 
 Superstitieuses. Rouen, 1702. 
 Le Conservateur Suisse. Vol. iv., p. 43. Lausanne, 
 
 1814. 
 
 LIONNOIS: Histoire de Nancy, n., 373. 1811. 
 LERSNER : Der Stadt Frankfurt Chronica, i. pp. 551, 552. 
 
 Proceedings against Animals in 1552 and 1574. 
 LESSONA, C. : Giurisprudenza Animalesca. Gazzetta 
 
 Litteraria, Turin 1887, Nos. 46 and 48. 
 LITCHENBERG, G. C. : Vermischte Schriften, iv., pp. 
 
 477-81. Gottingen, 1802. 
 LOMBROSO, C. : II Delitto negli Animali. Archivio di 
 
 Psichiatria. Vol. u. Torino, 1881. 
 
 L' Uomo Delinquente. 2 vols. Torino, 1889. 
 
 II Delitto politico, e le Revoluzioni in Rapporto al 
 
 Diritto, etc. Torino, 1890. 
 
 L' Uomo di Genio. Torino, 1888. 
 
 Der Verbrecher in anthropologischer, arztlicher,
 
 368 Bibliography 
 
 und juristischer Beziehung. Deutsche Bearbeitung 
 von M. O. Frankel. Hamburg, 1887. 
 LOUANDRE, CHARLES : Les Animaux dans la Jurisprud- 
 ence. Revue des Deux Mondes 1854. Tome v., 
 
 PP- 33 x -36. 
 
 MALLEOLUS, FELIX : Tractatus de Exorcismis. 
 MANGIN, ARTHUR : L'Homme et la Bete. Paris, 1872. 
 MANGEL, BERNARDES : Nova Floresta ou Sylva de 
 
 varies Apothegmas, e ditos sentencios espirituaes e 
 
 moraes. 5 tome. Lisboa, 1706 1747. 
 MARCHISIO, MICHELE: Gatte o Insetti Nocivi, pp. 63 
 
 sqq. Turin, 1834. 
 MAUDSLEY, HENRY : Physiology and Pathology of Mind. 
 
 London, 1868. 
 Mdmoires de la Socidte' des Antiquaires de Normandie. 
 
 2 e se'rie, vol. ix. (vol. xix. de la collection). Paris, 
 
 1851. 
 MENABREA, LEON : De 1'Origine de la Forme et de 
 
 1'Esprit des Jugements rendus au Moyen-Age contre 
 
 les Animaux. Chambery, 1846. Reprint in book 
 
 form of a paper originally published in Mdmoires de la 
 
 Socidte' Royale Acade'mique de Savoie. Tome xii., 
 
 1846. 
 
 MIRAUT : Histoire de Sardaigne. 
 NEWELL, WILLIAM WELLS : Conjuring Rats. The 
 
 Journal of American Folk Lore (January March, 
 
 1892). 
 NOORDEWIER, M. J. : Nederduitsche Regtsoudheden. 
 
 Utrecht, 1853. 
 NORK, F. : Article in Scheible's Das Kloster weltlich und 
 
 geistlich, etc. Vol. xii., pp. 942-949. Stuttgart, 1849. 
 OPZOOMER, C. W. : Di Dieren voor den Rechter. 
 
 Volksalmanak van het jaar 1862.
 
 Bibliography 369 
 
 ORANO, G. : La Criminalita nelle sue relazioni col clima. 
 
 Roma, 1882. 
 ORTOLI, FR. : Les Proces d'Animaux au moyen-age. La 
 
 Tradition. Paris, 1888. pp. 77-82. Based on Vernet in 
 
 Thdmis viii. 
 OSENBRUGGEN, EcuARD : Studien zur deutschen und 
 
 SchweizerischenRechtsgeschichte. Schaffhausen, 1868. 
 
 (vii. Die Personificirung der Thiere, pp. 139-149.) 
 PAPON : Recueil d'Arrets notables des Cours Souve- 
 
 raines de France. Liv. xxii., Titre 7. 
 PEIGNOT, GABRIEL : Essai chronologique sur les moeurs, 
 
 etc. les plus remarquables dans la Bourgogne, p. 68. 
 
 Dijon, 1827. 
 FERTILE, ANTONIO : Gli Animali in Giudizio. Atti del 
 
 Reale Institute Veneto. Tomo iv., serie vi. Venezia, 
 
 1886. 
 PIERQUIN : Traite de la Folie des Animaux et de ses 
 
 Rapports avec celle de I'Homme et les Legislations 
 
 actuelles. Paris, 1839. 
 PORTO, V. : La Scuola criminale positiva et il progetto de 
 
 nuovo codice. Verona, 1884. 
 PROAL, Louis : Le Crime et la Peine. Paris, 1892. 
 
 This work is opposed to the theories of Lombroso 
 
 and the new school of criminal anthropologists, but 
 
 states their views fully and clearly. 
 QUINONES, JUAN DE : Tratado de Langostas. Madrid, 
 
 1620. A treatise on exorcisms of locusts, weevils, rats, 
 
 mice, and birds. 
 RAYNAUD, THEOPHILE : De Monitoriis, etc. (Part n. 
 
 c. 12, No. 6) in his Opusc. Misc. 1665. Tom. xiv., 
 
 p. 482. 
 
 The author criticises Chassene'e. 
 Ricctus, ALOYSIUS : Resolutiones (408). 
 24
 
 370 Bibliography 
 
 ROCH, HEINRICH : Bohmische, Schlesische und Lausitz- 
 
 ische Chroniken. 
 ROCHE-FLAVIN, DE LA : Arrets notables du Parlement de 
 
 Toulouse. Liv. iii. Titre 2. 
 ROCHER, LE PERE : Gloire de 1'Abbaye et Valise de la 
 
 Novalaise. 
 ROSARIUS, HIEROLYMUS : Quod Animalia Bruta Ratione 
 
 Utantur melius Homine. Amstel., 1654. 
 ROUSSEAU DE LACOMBE : Traitd des Matieres Criminelles. 
 
 Part i, ch. 2, sect, i, distinct. 8. 
 RUCHAT, ABRAHAM : Abrdgd de PHistoire Eccle'siastique 
 
 du Pays de Vaud. 
 
 SAINT-FOIX: Oeuvres. 1778,1^,97. 
 SAUVAL : Histoire de Paris. Vol. iii., p. 387. 
 SCHLAGER : Wiener Skizzen aus dem Mittelalter. 
 SCHMID, REINHOLD : Gesetze der Angelsachsen. 2nd ed. 
 
 Leipzig, 1858. 
 SEIFART, K. : Hingerichtete Thiere und Gespenster. 
 
 Zeitschrift fiir deutsche Kulturgeschichte, 1856, 
 
 pp. 424 30. 
 SLOET : Die Dieren in het Germaansche Volksgeloof en 
 
 Volksgebruik. 's-Gravenhage, 1887. 
 SOREL, ALBERT : Proces centre des Animaux et Insectes 
 
 suivis au Moyen-age dans la Picardie et le Valois. 
 
 Compiegne, 1877. 
 STARK, HERMANN : Griechische Antiquitaten. Vol. i., 
 
 487. 
 TESTRUP, KR. S. : Rinds Herreds Kronika (Samlinger til 
 
 jydsk Historic og Topografi. Vol. ii., pp. 62 64) 
 
 1711. 
 THEMIS JURISCONSULTI : Tome i., pp. 178 181 ; 
 
 Tome viii., part 2, pp. 45 sqq. 
 THIERS : Des superstitions. Vol. i., 48a.
 
 Bibliography 371 
 
 THOMAS AQUINAS : Summa Theologiae. Vol. ii., 
 
 pars. Ixxvi., art. 2. 
 THONISSEN, J. : Etudes sur 1'Histoire du Droit Criminel. 
 
 Vol. ii., pp. 198 sqq. Bruxelles, 1869. 
 -- Le Droit pdnal de la Rdpublique Athdnienne, 
 
 pp. 256, 412 sqq. 1875. 
 
 TOBLER, G. : Thierprocesse in der Schweiz. Bern, 1893. 
 TORNING, CHRISTIANUS J. : De Peccatis et Poenis 
 
 Brutorum. A dissertation on graduating at the 
 
 University of Upsala in Sweden. May 25, 1725. 
 VAN HAAFTEN : Die Dieren als misdadigers voor den 
 
 Rechter. Eigen Haard, 1884. 
 VAIRO, LEONARDO : De Fascino libri tres, etc. Venet. 
 
 VERNET : Lettre ... sur les Proces fails aux Animaux. 
 
 The'mis, vol. viii. B., pp. 45 61. 
 Vivio, FRANCESCO : Decisiones. No. 68. 1610. 
 DE WINDE: Byzonderheden uit de Geschiedeniss van 
 
 het strafregt in de Nederlanden. Middelburg, 1827. 
 ZEROLA, THOMAS: Praxis Episcopalis. Sub verbo 
 
 Superstitio. Venet. 1599.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABBOTT, Rev. Lyman, re- 
 gards bad impulses as 
 suggestions of evil spirits, 
 76 
 
 Achan, his severe punish- 
 ment by Joshua, 180 
 
 Addosio, Carlo d', his Bestie 
 Delinquenti cited, I, 4 ; 
 his list of animal prose- 
 cutions, 135 ; on pigs as 
 a public nuisance in Italy, 
 
 159 
 
 ^schines, cited, 172 
 
 ./Eschylus, his Choephoroi 
 cited, 174 
 
 Ahuramazda, 57, 61, 82, 176 
 
 Alard, Jean, burned alive 
 as a Sodomite for coition 
 with a Jewess, 1 53 
 
 Altiat, his poem quoted, 93 
 
 Amira, Prof. Karl von, his 
 Thierstrafen und Thier- 
 processe cited, 1-3, 137 
 
 Anathemas, only effective 
 when formally complete, 
 as with all incantations 
 and excommunications, 4, 
 36 ; citations from the 
 Bible in proof of their 
 power, 25 ; render an 
 orchard barren and expel 
 eels and blood-suckers 
 from Lake Leman, 27 ; 
 turn white bread black to 
 punish heresy, 28 ; fatal 
 
 to swallows and flies, 
 which disturb religious 
 services, 28, 29 ; sold by 
 the Pope, 30 ; hurled 
 against noxious vermin, 
 37 ; made more effective 
 by the prompt payment 
 of tithes, 37 ; differ from 
 excommunications, 51-54; 
 superseded in Protestant- 
 ism by prayer and fasting 
 and in science by Paris 
 green, 53 
 
 Animals, prosecuted by civil 
 and ecclesiastical courts, 
 2 ; office of the Church in 
 repressing articulate and 
 rodent, 3, 5 ; as satellites 
 of Satan or agents of God, 
 5, 6, 52-57, 67 ; personi- 
 fication of, 10, ii ; their 
 competency as witnesses, 
 1 1 ; origin of their judicial 
 prosecution, 12 ; as born 
 criminals, 14 ; tendency 
 of modern penology to 
 efface the distinction be- 
 tween men and, 14, 193 ; 
 instances of their criminal 
 prosecution, 16, 18, 21, 
 
 37-50, 93-124, 134-157, 
 160-163 ; methods of 
 procedure against, 31 ; 
 whether legally laity or 
 clergy, 32 ; punitive and 
 
 373
 
 374 
 
 Index 
 
 preventive prosecution of, 
 33 ; their consciousness of 
 right and wrong, 35, 247 ; 
 false conception of the 
 purpose of their prose- 
 cution, 40 ; can be an- 
 athematized, but not ex- 
 communicated, 51 ; items 
 of expense in prosecuting, 
 49, 138, 140-143; not mere 
 machines, 66 ; in folk-lore, 
 84 ; worship of, 85 ; im- j 
 perfect lists of prosecuted, 
 135- 1 37 5 burned and ! 
 buried alive, 1 38 ; put to j 
 the rack to extort confes- j 
 sion, 139; confiscation of 
 valuable, 164, 189 ; un- ! 
 clean flesh of executed, 
 169 ; imputed criminality 
 of, 177 ; criminals as 
 ferocious, 212; mental and | 
 moral qualities of men 
 and, 234 ; six categories j 
 of their criminal offences, j 
 235 ; the safety of society | 
 the supreme law in the | 
 judicial punishment of 
 men and, 247-252 
 Anatolus, his " Geoponics,'" 
 
 133 
 
 Angel, Emile, cited, 124 
 
 Anglo-Saxon law, its retri- 
 butive character, 168 ; its 
 cruel doctrine of acces- 
 sories, 178 ; on tainted 
 swords, 187 
 
 Angro-mainyush, 57, 59, 61, 
 82 
 
 Anthony, St., patron of pigs, 
 158 
 
 Anthropologists, criminal 
 researches of, 211, 215 
 
 Aquinas. See Thomas 
 
 Arcadius, his atrocious edict, 
 179 
 
 Ashes, modern and mediaeval 
 use of verm ifu gal, 53 
 
 Augustine, St., cited, 94, 106 
 
 Aura corrumpens in houses 
 and stalls, 8 
 
 Aurelian, Father, on dia- 
 bolical possession, 75 
 
 Avesta, on exorcisms, 36 ; 
 on good and evil creations, 
 57 ; on mad dogs, 176 
 
 Ayrault, Pierre, his protest 
 against animal prosecu- 
 tions, 109 
 
 Azpilcueta, Martin. See Dr. 
 Navarre. 
 
 BAAL-ZEBUB (Beelzebub), 
 fly-god, 84 ; his preference 
 for black beasts, 165 
 
 Bailly, Gaspard, his Traite 
 des Monitoires cited, 52, 
 92-108 
 
 " Basilisk-egg," 10 
 
 Basilius, St., his insect-ex- 
 pelling girdle, 136 
 
 Basilovitch, Ivan, his con- 
 ception of retributive jus- 
 tice, 183 
 
 Bassos, Kassianos, prefers 
 rat-bane to adjuration, 132 
 
 Beasts, sweet and stenchy, 
 
 55 
 
 Bees, tainted honey of homi- 
 cidal, 9 
 
 Bell, banished to Siberia by 
 the Russian Government^ 
 
 175 
 
 Benedikt, Prof., on the brain- 
 formation of criminals 
 212
 
 Index 
 
 375 
 
 Bernard, Claude, his idea of 
 the physiologist, 245 
 
 Bernard, St., kills flies by 
 cursing them, 28 
 
 Bernardes, Manoel, his Nova 
 Flares ta, 124 
 
 Berriat- Saint-Prix, his valu- 
 able researches, 2, 17, 20 ; 
 list of prosecuted animals, 
 
 135-137 
 
 Bichat,his defective cranium, 
 217 
 
 Bischofberger, Dr. Theobald, 
 his curious theory of the 
 effects of unexpiated crime 
 on persons and property, 
 6-8 ; his recent brochure 
 in defence of exorcisms, 
 
 73 
 
 Bischoff, Prof., his hobby 
 refuted by the weight of 
 his own brain, 218 
 
 Blackstone, on deodands, 
 1 86, 189, 192 
 
 Blood-letting, as a panacea 
 in law and medicine, 194 
 
 " Blue Laws," an advance in 
 penal legislation, 209 
 
 Bodelschwingh, his bacillus 
 infernalis, 91 
 
 Boehme, Jacob, his definition 
 of magic, 127 
 
 Boer, Nicolaus, on cohabita- 
 tion with a Jewess as 
 sodomy, 153 
 
 Bogos, homicidal beasts exe- 
 cuted by the, 155 
 
 Bonnivard, Francois, pre- 
 sides as judge in a trial 
 of vermin, 38 
 
 Borromeo, Carlo, his cruelty 
 in punishing heresy, 208 
 
 Bougeant, Pere, his Amuse- 
 
 ment Philosophique cited, 
 66-69 5 80-86, 88-90, 92 
 
 Bracton, 167 ; on deodands, 
 186 
 
 Brain, its size not always 
 a measure of mental 
 capacity, 217-219 
 
 Browne, Dr. William Hand, 
 cited, 187 
 
 Buggery, instances of this 
 "nameless crime," 147- 
 153 ; she-ass acquitted 
 and man condemned to 
 death for, 150 ; in the 
 Carolina punished with 
 death by fire, 151 ; in the 
 Mosaic law, 152; sexual 
 intercourse with a Jewess 
 regarded as, 1 53 
 
 Bull, executed for murder, 
 161 
 
 CALVIN, his conception of 
 God, 59 
 
 Canute, King, 178 
 
 Carolina, the, its severe 
 penalties, 182 
 
 Carpzov, Benedict, on sodo- 
 my, 151 
 
 Cattle, bewitched by bad 
 air, 8 
 
 Cervantes, 167 
 
 Character, factors in the 
 formation of, 219 ; respon- 
 sibility for, 239, 243 
 
 Charcot, Dr., on the curative 
 power of faith, 80, 225 
 
 Chassenee, Bartholomew, his 
 Consilia, 2, 21-23 > dis- 
 tinguished as a defender 
 of prosecuted rats, 18 ; 
 equal rights of rats and 
 Waldenses recognized by,
 
 37 6 
 
 Index 
 
 20 ; his erudition, 24 ; his 
 absurd deductions, 26 ; 
 regards animals as laity 
 in the eye of the law, 32 
 
 Chinese, recent beheading 
 of idols for murder, 174 
 
 Church, the, its treatment 
 of noxious insects as incar- 
 nations of Satan and as 
 agents of God, 3-6 ; capital 
 punishment never inflicted 
 by, 31 ; its power to stay 
 the ravages of vermin un- 
 questioned, 50 
 
 Cicero, cited, 22, 101 ; his 
 approval of atrocious 
 penalties, 178 
 
 Cock, burned at the stake 
 for laying eggs, 10, n, 
 162 ; nature and origin of 
 its supposed eggs, 163-5 
 
 Cockatrice, 12, 163 
 
 Coleridge, his definition of 
 madman, 228 
 
 Corpses, prosecuted and exe- 
 cuted, no, 198, 199; can- 
 not inherit, no 
 
 " Corruption of blood," in 
 theology and law, 181 
 
 Courcelle-Seneuil, his view 
 of prisons, 212 
 
 Cows, executed for homicide, 
 169 
 
 Cranks, execution of, 249- 
 251 
 
 Cretella, 17 
 
 Cretins, their brains not 
 always abnormal, 219 ; 
 sentenced to death, 251 
 
 Criminality, examples of im- 
 puted, 177-185 ; ancient 
 and mediaeval conceptions 
 of, 200 ; punished for the 
 
 safety of society, 211, 248 ; 
 compared to vitriol, 212 ; 
 supposed physical indices 
 of, 213-217 ; casual and 
 constitutional, 214-223 ; 
 ativism the source of, 212, 
 215 ; the result of hypnot- 
 ism, 223-225 ; due to many 
 uncontrollable conditions, 
 230 ; motives underlying 
 animal, 235 ; animals con- 
 scious of, 247 ; contagious- 
 ness of, 252, 256 
 
 Crollanza, his record of the 
 prosecution of caterpillars, 
 122 
 
 Crosiers, vermifugal efficacy 
 of, 30 
 
 Cybele, invoked against 
 vermin, 133 
 
 DAMHOUDER, Jacobus, 
 picture of animal crimes 
 in \i\%Rerum Criminalium 
 Praxis, 16 ; citations from 
 this work, 109, 146 ; regards 
 sexual intercourse with 
 Jews, Turks, and Saracens 
 as sodomy, 153 
 
 Dasturs, Parsi, Zarathushtra's 
 teachings degraded by the, 
 
 59 
 
 Demosthenes, cited, 172 
 Deodands, nature of, 186-190, 
 192 ; abolished in England 
 under Queen Victoria, 192 
 Devils,their damage to landed 
 property, 7 ; multiplied by 
 the spread of Christianity, 
 13, 80 ; destined to eternal 
 torments after the Last 
 Judgment, 68-70 ; incar- 
 nate in every babe, 70 ;
 
 Index 
 
 377 
 
 maladies produced by, 72 ; 
 modern inventions the de- 
 vices of, 229 
 Didymos, his " Geoponics," 
 
 .'33 . 
 Dimitri, Prince, bell banished 
 
 to Siberia for rejoicing over 
 
 his assassination, 175 
 Dogs, trial and execution of 
 
 mad, 176 ; crucified in 
 
 Rome for imputed crime, 
 
 177 
 Dopier, Jacob, on sodomy, 
 
 152 ; on Lex talionts, 182 ; 
 
 on vampires, 197 
 Dove, symbol of the Holy 
 
 Ghost, 57 
 Draco (Drakon), his law 
 
 punishing weapons, 172 
 Dreyfus, his prosecution in- 
 stigated by a sensational 
 
 novel, 253-255 
 Ducol, Pierre, prosecutor of 
 
 weevils, 38 
 Dumas, his Count of Monte 
 
 Christo cited, 240 
 Duret, Jean, his Treatise on 
 
 Pains and Penalties, 108 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL tribunal, 
 an, rejects the Mosaic law 
 and discusses crime from 
 a psychiatrical point of 
 view, 170 
 
 Eldrad, St., expels serpents, 
 So 
 
 Electricity, execution by, 
 210 
 
 Elk, as demon, 90 
 
 Erechtheus, punishment of 
 deadly weapons, 172 
 
 Erinnys, appeasing the, 174 
 
 Escheat, in Scotch law, 189 
 
 Eusebius, describes hell as 
 very cold, 105 
 
 Eustace, St., 56 
 
 Evolution, dogma of original 
 sin supplanted by the 
 doctrine of, 232 
 
 Excommunications, pro- 
 nounced against insects 
 by the Church, 3 ; sold at 
 Rome, 30 ; properly speak- 
 ing, animals not subject to, 
 51, 100; comical survivals 
 of, 128. See Anathemas 
 
 Exorcisms, their efficiency 
 recognized by Heidelberg 
 professors, 27 ; applied as 
 plasters, 72 ; superseded 
 by conjurations among 
 Protestants, 125 ; by Mo- 
 hammedans, 137 
 
 FALCON, Pierre, defender of 
 
 weevils, 38 
 Felo de se, a sort of treason, 
 
 190. See Suicide 
 Feuchtersleben, Baron Von, 
 
 records cases of morbid 
 
 imitation, 253 
 Field-mice, conjuration of, 
 
 133 
 Flesh of executed animals 
 
 tainted, 169 
 
 Flies as demons, 28, 86 
 Florian, St., the protector of 
 
 houses from fire, 136 
 Fly-flaps, papal, 29 
 Formosus, Pope, his corpse 
 
 tried and condemned for 
 
 usurpation, 198 
 Foscolo, Ugo, his cranium 
 
 that of an idiot, 218 
 Fox, diabolical nature of the 
 
 56
 
 Index 
 
 Frederic the Great, his 
 penal reforms, 207 
 
 Fricker, Thtiring, doctor of 
 laws, chancellor and prose- 
 cutor of inger, 116 
 
 GADFLIES, episcopal rescript 
 against, 124 
 
 Galton, on heredity, 239 
 
 Gambetta, his small and 
 abnormal brain, 217 
 
 Geese, sacred, rewarded at 
 Rome for the vigilance of 
 their foremothers, 177 
 
 Genius, to madness close 
 allied, 228 
 
 Gorres, recent case of con- 
 juration recorded by, 125 
 
 Gratiolet, on the brain of 
 the " Hottentot Venus," 
 218 
 
 Greeks, ancient, ascribed 
 pestilence to the miasma 
 of unexpiated murder, 9, 
 
 174 
 
 Gregory of Tours, on bronze 
 dormice and serpents as 
 talismans, 132 
 
 Greysser, Daniel, the effici- 
 ency of bans not super- 
 natural, 128 
 
 Gross, his mis-statement con- 
 cerning the cock of Bale, 
 162 
 
 Guiteau, deterrent effect of 
 his execution, 250 
 
 HARPOKRATION, Valerius, 
 
 cited, 172 
 
 Harrison, Miss, cited, 187 
 Hart, symbolism of the, 56 
 Hawks, dead, as protectors 
 
 of hens, 252 
 
 Hemmerlein, Felix. See 
 Malleolus 
 
 Hens, crowing, 10 
 
 Heredity, its predetermining 
 influence as viewed by 
 theologians and scientists, 
 232 
 
 Heymanns, Mynheer, on re- 
 sponsibility for character, 
 
 243 
 Hierarchies, their failure in 
 
 civil government, 249 
 Honorius, his atrocious edict, 
 
 179 
 Horses, condemned to death 
 
 for homicide, 162 
 Hubert, St., 56 
 Hugon, St., expels venom 
 
 from serpents by excom- 
 munication, 103 
 Hunters among savages, their 
 
 superstitious fear of killing 
 
 wild animals, 174 
 Hypnotism, its causal relation 
 
 to crime, 223-226 ; as the 
 
 basis of the witchcraft 
 
 delusion, 225 
 
 IDOLS, decapitation of, 174 
 
 Inger, prosecuted and put 
 under ban, 113-115; not 
 in Noah's Ark, 120 
 
 Insanity, degrees of, 200-203 '> 
 in Italian and German law, 
 204-206 ; difficulty of de- 
 fining, 226-228 ; in English 
 law, 246 ; moral, 250 ; as 
 a shelter for crime, 256 
 
 Insects, prosecution of, 37, 
 41-49 ; incarnations of 
 demons, 86 
 
 Italy, palliation of crime in, 
 203, 204
 
 Index 
 
 379 
 
 J BANNERET, Marie, her toxi- 
 
 comania, 240-246 
 Jews, in Christian legislation 
 
 on a par with beasts, 152, 
 
 165 
 John the Lamb, his curse 
 
 fatal to fish, 28 
 Jonson, Ben, cited, 130 
 Jordan, Father, casts out 
 
 devils with Lourdes water 
 
 in 1887, 74 
 Jorgensen, cited, 17 
 Joshua, his penal cruelty, 
 
 180 
 
 KING Mode, his discourse 
 with Queen Reason, 55 
 
 Kirchenheim, Prof. Von, 
 urges reform of our penal 
 codes, 219 
 
 Koran, the, on the punish- 
 ment of beasts, 171 
 
 Kukis, destroy homicidal 
 trees, 171 
 
 LAAS, his definition of judicial 
 punishment, 238 
 
 Lacassagne,his six categories 
 of crime, 235 
 
 Langevin, Pierre Gilles, 
 fresco of the execution of 
 a sow described by, 141 
 
 Lapeyronie, his dissertation 
 proving that cocks never 
 lay eggs, 163 
 
 Le Bon, on hereditary crimin- 
 ality, 223 
 
 Leipsic, decision of the Law 
 Faculty concerning a homi- 
 cidal cow, 169 
 
 Leo XIII., his exorcism of 
 Satan and apostate angels, 
 73 
 
 Letang, Louis, causal relation 
 of his novel to the Dreyfus 
 affair, 254 
 
 Lex talionis, striking applica- 
 tions of this oldest form of 
 penal justice, 167 ; inflicts 
 horrible mutilations, 182 
 
 Lilienberg, Mathias Abele 
 Von, his record of a dog 
 sentenced to prison, 175 
 
 Liszt, Prof. Von, on retributive 
 and preventive penalties, 
 
 237 
 
 Locusts, expelled by exor- 
 cisms and aspergeoires, 3, 
 64 ; dispersed and de- 
 stroyed by excommunica- 
 tion, 22, 93, 94 ; prosecution 
 of, 95-108, 136 
 
 Lohbauer, Pater Franz 
 Xaver, ^ascribes nervous 
 disease to diabolical 
 possession, 71 
 
 Lombroso, on animals as 
 born criminals, 14 ; op- 
 posed to trial by jury, 185 ; 
 regards tattooing, dark 
 thick hair and thin beards, 
 as signs of criminality, 213 ; 
 on ativism as the source of 
 crime, 215 ; innate crimin- 
 ality not eradicated by 
 education, 223 ; compares 
 the capital punishment of 
 cretins and cranks to that 
 of animals, 251 
 
 Lucifer, writhes under the 
 water of Lourdes, 74 
 
 Lycia, punished by imputa- 
 tion, 1 80 
 
 MAJOLUS, cited, 86 
 Maledictions. See Anathemas
 
 3 8o 
 
 Index 
 
 Malleolus, Felix, his theory 
 of exorcisms endorsed by 
 Heidelberg professors, 27 ; 
 records a prosecution of 
 Spanish flies, no; his 
 formula for banning 
 serpents, 121 
 
 Mangin, Arthur, cited, 16, 
 
 139 
 
 Manicheans, their doctrine 
 
 of good and evil, 60 
 Manouvrier, Dr., likens 
 
 Gambetta's skull to that of 
 
 a savage, 217 
 Mantegazza, Prof., his 
 
 " tormentatore," 245 
 Manu, Institutes of, 168 
 Marro, on metaphors as facts, 
 
 216 
 Mather, Cotton, records the 
 
 execution of a pious 
 
 Sodomite and eight beasts, 
 
 148 
 Menebre"a, M. L., 2, 17 ; 
 
 his theory untenable, 
 
 40 
 Mephistopheles, the lord of 
 
 rodents and vermin, 85 
 Mithridates, experiments 
 
 with poisons, 244 
 Moles, prosecution of, ni- 
 
 "3 
 
 Monks, as landed proprietors 
 
 in France, 158 
 Monomania, frequency of, 
 
 227 
 Morel, Claude, defender of 
 
 weevils, 38 
 Mornacius, his record of mad 
 
 dogs sentenced to death, 
 
 176 
 Morselli, Prof., on the causes 
 
 of suicide, 229 
 
 Mosaic law, the, rejected by 
 an ecclesiastical court, 1 70 ; 
 barbarity of, 167, 180 
 
 Murder, miasma of, 9, 174 ; 
 weapons tainted by, 187- 
 190 
 
 Mutilations, in accordance 
 with the Lex talionis, 176, 
 182 
 
 Mythology, monstrosities and 
 metamorphoses of classi- 
 cal, 64 ; in modern life, 228 
 
 NAQUET, regards criminals 
 as no more culpable than 
 poisons, 212. 
 
 Narrenkotterlein, dog sen- 
 tenced to a, 175 
 
 Nature, imperfection of, 61 
 
 Navarre, Dr., regards fish as 
 cacodemons, 90 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, a satanic 
 metamorphosis, 63 
 
 Nikon, his statue punished 
 for manslaughter com- 
 mitted in self-defence, 
 172 
 
 Noah, God's covenant with 
 him required the capital 
 punishment of beasts, 168 
 
 Novels, morbific influence of 
 sensational, 253 
 
 Numa Pompilius, quoted, 
 1 06 ; his law for protecting 
 boundary stones, 183 
 
 ORIGEN, believed in the 
 
 ultimate redemption of 
 
 Satan, 68 
 Osenbriiggen, Eduard, his 
 
 theory of the personification 
 
 of animals, 10, 17 
 Ovid, quoted, 101, 103
 
 Index 
 
 Oxen, executed, 168 ; pun- 
 ished although innocent, 
 183 
 
 PACHACUTEZ,barbarous code 
 of this Peruvian Justi- 
 nian, 179 
 
 Papal See, trial and punish- 
 ment of corpses by the, 198 
 
 Pape, Guy, cited, 108 
 
 Paracelsus, on the magnetic 
 power of the will, 126 
 
 Pardoning power, exercise of 
 the, 248 
 
 Parsis, their Dasturs, 59 ; 
 co-workers of Ahuramazda, 
 6 1, 82 ; no doctrine of 
 atonement, 63 
 
 Pasteur, exterminates noxious 
 microbes, 62 
 
 Patriotism as a perverter of 
 justice, 185 
 
 Pausanias cited, 172 
 
 Penology, man and beast in 
 modern, 14, 193; mediaeval 
 and modern, 1 5, 200, 206- 
 2 10 ; in Italy and Germany, 
 203-206 ; brutality of med- 
 iaeval, 206-209 ; moral and 
 penal responsibility, 210 ; 
 still inchoate, 15, 219-223, 
 257 ; deterrent aims of, 21 1, 
 248, 249 ; law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest in, 221- 
 223 ; punitive and preven- 
 tive, 237 ; its relation to 
 psycho-pathology, 248 
 
 Pereira Gomez , forerunner of 
 Descartes, 66 
 
 Perjury, retaliative punish- 
 ment of, 182 
 
 Perrodet, Jean, defender of 
 inger, 118 
 
 Phlebotomy. See Blood- 
 letting 
 
 Pico di Mirandola, quoted, 
 103 
 
 Piety, market value of, 7 
 
 Pigs. See Swine 
 
 Pirminius, St., his anathema 
 of venomous reptiles, 29 
 
 Plato, his theory of creation, 
 59 ; on homicidal animals, 
 173 ; on retributive and 
 preventive punishment, 
 
 237 
 
 Pliny, quoted, 103 
 
 Pollux, Julius, quoted, 172 
 
 Potter, a pious Sodomite 
 executed, 148 
 
 Predestination in theology 
 and science, 232-234 
 
 Prussia, barbarous punish- 
 ments, 1 80; opposed to 
 reform, 205 
 
 Prytaneion (Prytaneum), con- 
 demned inanimate objects 
 for crime, 172; but not 
 corpses, 199 
 
 Pufendorf, Samuel, on con- 
 tagiousness in crime, 256 
 
 Puritans, their penal enact- 
 ments, 209 
 
 Pythagoras, his doctrine of 
 transmigration, 87 
 
 QUEEN Reason, her dis- 
 course on animals in reply 
 to King Mode, 56-58 
 
 RACINE, his caricature of 
 beast trials in Les Plai- 
 deurs, 166, 361 
 Ram, banished to Siberia, 175 
 Randolph, his allusion to 
 rhyming rats, 130
 
 382 
 
 Index 
 
 Rats, prosecution of, 18-21, 
 1 36 ; friendly letters of 
 advice to, 129 ; Irish cus- 
 tom of rhyming, 1 30 
 
 Raven, an imp of Satan, 57 
 
 Renaud d'Alleins, on equal 
 rights of Waldenses and 
 rats, 20 
 
 Responsibility, moral and 
 penal, 210 
 
 Reusch, Prof. Dr. Fr. Hein- 
 rich, denounces bishops 
 as promoters of super- 
 stition, 14 
 
 Ro-ro-ro-ro, an anti-semitic 
 devil cast out in 1842, 
 
 73 
 
 Rosarius, Hierolymus, de- 
 scribes the exposure of 
 crucified lions and gibbeted 
 wolves as a warning to 
 their kind, 251 ; regards 
 animals as often more 
 rational than men, 252 
 
 SATAN, his earthly sove- 
 reignty, 60, 70 ; the doc- 
 trine of his final redemp- 
 tion, 68 
 
 Schilling, on the prosecution 
 of inger, 113, 120 
 
 Schlager, cited, 176 
 
 Schleswig, its punishment of 
 homicidal timber, 187 
 
 Schmid, Bernard, his sermon 
 on the devastations by 
 inger, 113-11 5 
 
 Scholasticism, quiddities of, 
 
 33 
 
 Schopenhauer, his theory of 
 the will, 127 ; man's re- 
 sponsibility for character 
 alone, 239, 243 
 
 Schwabenspiegel, barbarity 
 of this old German code, 
 178 
 
 Schwarz Mining, prosecutor 
 of moles, 112 
 
 Schweinfurter Sauhenker, 
 origin of the term, 147 
 
 Serpents, destroyed by St. 
 Eldrad, 51 ; freed from 
 poison by St. Hugon, 
 103 
 
 Shakespeare, alludes to " be- 
 rhymed" rats, 130; and a 
 wolf on the gallows, 1 57 
 
 Silius Italicus, quoted, 103 
 
 Simon, Max, on the morbid 
 spirit of imitation, 253 
 
 Sociology, its influence on 
 criminal jurisprudence, 238 
 
 Socrates, on self-perfection, 
 
 234 
 
 Sodomy. See Buggery 
 
 Soldan, cited, 17 
 
 Sparrows, put under ban 
 by a Protestant parson, 
 128 
 
 Stephen VI., Pope, adjures 
 locusts, 65 ; prosecutes the 
 corpse of his predecessor, 
 198 ; strangled in prison, 
 199 
 
 Suicide, punishment of the 
 wife and children of a, 
 190 ; condemned as a 
 crime and also recognized 
 as a right, 191, 192 ; due 
 to manifold influences, 
 229 
 
 Superstition, fostered by 
 bishops and Jesuits, 14 
 
 Swallows, anathematized for 
 chattering in church, 28 
 
 Swine, execution of, 16, 140-
 
 Index 
 
 145* *49, i53-i57,i6i, 169; 
 as stenchy beasts pecu- 
 liarly attractive to devils, 
 56, 165 ; Gadarene, 69, 91, 
 165 
 Swords, tainted, 187 
 
 TAINE, his definition of man, 
 214 
 
 Tarde, defines the mob as a 
 mad beast, 236 
 
 Tatian, his fellow-citizens 
 punished for his offences, 
 1 80 
 
 Tattooing, not peculiar to 
 criminals, 213 
 
 Termites, prosecuted by 
 Franciscans in Brazil and 
 praised by their defender 
 as more industrious than 
 the friars, 123 
 
 Tertullian, quoted, 106 
 
 Theognis, his bust punished 
 for murder, 172 
 
 Thomas a Becket, his bones 
 burned by Henry VIII., 
 198 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, regarded 
 animals only as diabolical 
 incarnations, 53-55, 88, 
 101, 103 
 
 Thurneysser, his bottled 
 scorpions and elk feared 
 as demons, 90 
 
 Tithes, importance of the 
 prompt payment of, 37, 94, 
 107 
 
 Tobler, G., on animal pro- 
 secutions in Switzerland, 
 I, 170 
 
 Treason, barbarously pun- 
 ished by Roman, Prussian, 
 and Judaic law, 179-181 
 
 Trench, Richard Chevenix, 
 
 his justification of the 
 
 cursing of the fig-tree, 25 
 Treufels, Richard, his belief 
 
 in the exorcism at Wem- 
 
 ding in 1891, 75 
 Tribunals, proper office of 
 
 criminal, 211, 232, 248 
 Tritheim, on Satan's invisible 
 
 apparition, 166 
 Tschech, executed, and his 
 
 innocent daughter exiled 
 
 for his crime, 179 
 Tiirler, records the rejection 
 
 of the Mosaic law by the 
 
 ecclesiastical court of 
 
 Berne, 170 
 
 VAMPIRES, superstitions con- 
 cerning, 195-198 
 
 Vendetta, in semi-civilized 
 communities, 178 
 
 Venidad, quoted, 63 
 
 Ventilation, " bewitched 
 kine " the result of bad, 8 
 
 Vermin. See Insects 
 
 Virgil, quoted, 26 
 
 WEEVILS, prosecuted for 
 damage to vineyards, 38- 
 
 49 
 
 Wemding, recent case of 
 diabolical possession in, 
 
 75 
 
 Were - wolves, incarnate 
 ghosts, 195 ; decree for 
 their extermination, 198 
 
 Werther, Goethe's, senti- 
 mentalism and suicidism 
 produced by, 253 
 
 Winterstetter, Georg, his 
 rescript concerning gad- 
 flies, 125
 
 Index 
 
 Witches in Judaic and me- 
 diaeval law, on a par with 
 animals, 145 ; rendered 
 harmless by burning, 
 196 
 
 Worms, Council of, its decree 
 concerning tainted honey, 
 9 
 
 ZARATHUSHTRA (Zoroaster), 
 his ethics and its workings, 
 
 57-59 
 Zoopsychology, in its relation 
 
 to anthropopsychology and 
 
 criminology, 237 
 Zupetta, on partial vitiation 
 
 of mind, 201 
 
 
 Richard Clay &* Sons, Limited, London and B-ungay.
 
 1
 
 University of California 
 
 n J ER o . REGIONAL L'BRARY FACILITY 
 05 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 . Box 951 n 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095 3M 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrow^