Legal theories throughout history seem very strange to us now, including the infamous lex talionis (eye for an eye), the concept of trial by fire, and the misogynistic practice of trial by water, in which an alleged witch was thrown into a river. If she floated, she was guilty, and if she drowned (and died), she was thus proven “innocent”.
But some of the strangest applications of legal theory in history involve animals, many of which were accused of breaking the law, assigned lawyers, given trials, and then executed for their “crimes”.
Pigs
Unfortunately for many parents throughout history, a hungry pig would occasionally find an untended baby or young child and eat it.
In 1386, a court in Falaise, France sentenced a female pig to be horrifically mutilated in its head and forelegs, an application of the lex talionis because the pig had maimed and eaten the child’s head and arms. After being found guilty, the pig was dressed in a man’s clothes and hanged in the main square in town.
Other pigs which have attacked or eaten small human children were arrested and kept in prison while they awaited their trial. One pig in the town of Pont de L’Arche was kept for three weeks in the local jail and fed the same food as the human prisoners until the pig was executed by hanging.
