The Pig That Was Hanged for Murder (and Other Animal Trials)

In 1386 a French town paid a hangman to execute a pig - and bought him a new glove to do it in. The bill still exists. For hundreds of years, real courts with real judges and real lawyers put animals on trial. A sow hanged for killing a child. Six piglets let off for lack of proof. Rats who got a lawyer and never showed up. Weevils who were offered their own field. And a donkey saved by a reference letter from the village priest. Judge Grubb and his court helper Bones walk through five real cases - then the two answers historians give for why anyone did this. Topics covered: medieval animal trials, the pig of Falaise 1386, Savigny sow and piglets 1457, the rats of Autun, Bartholomew Chassenee, the weevils of Saint-Julien 1587, the Vanvres donkey 1750, Church courts and curses, Peter Leeson vermin trials and tithes. 0:00 Bring In the Pig 0:29 The Pig That Got a Bill 2:32 The Piglets Who Got Off 4:13 The Rats Who Got a Lawyer 6:03 The Weevils Who Got Their Own Field 8:07 The Donkey With a Reference 9:03 So Why Did They Do It? #History #Medieval #AnimalTrials Sources E. P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1906) Peter T. Leeson, "Vermin Trials", Journal of Law and Economics 56 (2013) Esther Cohen, "Law, Folklore and Animal Lore", Past and Present 110 (1986), via JSTOR Daily Peter Dinzelbacher, "Animal Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach", Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32 (2002), via JSTOR Daily Paul Friedland, Seeing Justice Done (2012), via London Review of Books Leiden Medievalists Blog, "Homicidal Hogs: Murderous Pigs on Trial in Medieval France" Popular Science, "In medieval France, murderous pigs faced trial and execution" (Sven Gins) Dolly Jorgensen, "Running Amuck? Urban Swine Management in Late Medieval England" BBC Discover Wildlife, "The day weevils hired lawyers" Wikipedia, "Animal trial"; "Barthelemy de Chasseneuz" S. Baring-Gould, Curiosities of Olden Times, ch. 12 (Vanvres) New history episodes every week. This video was researched, written, and narrated with AI assistance, based on the published historical sources listed above.