The Cockrel of Basle
I found an ancient and very obscure article yesterday that I deemed random enough to be mentioned here. It concerns the medieval practice of holding animal courts. Yes, trails for wildlife miscreants that have broken the law and hence must be tried and punished before God.Apparently the first recorded animal trial was in AD 864 where the court decreed that a hive of bees which had stung a man to death should be suffocated, although exactly how they planned to achieve this I have no idea – but then common sense doesn’t really seem to come in to this at all. I have realised that the key to holding a successful animal trial is bucketfuls of religious zeal and little else as displayed by St Bernard who excommunicated a swarm of flies that were irritating him as he preached in the 11th Century.
More often, however, it seems that larger animals fell foul of the law and obviously had to have criminal proceedings brought against them – like the horse who threw his rider, killing him, whereupon the beast itself was itself sentenced to die. Freeroaming pigs in France also seem to be persistent offenders with one notable incident where a Sow and her six piglets were found guilty of eating a child! Sensibly the sow was hanged but the youngsters were “spared because of their youth” and “the bad example set by their mother”. One assumes they were rehabilitated or given foster homes- heaven forbid that they be left to their own devices; free to follow in the footsteps of their despicable single parent.
One of my favourites has to be the Trial of the Cockerel of Basle in 1471 in Switzerland, where apparently even birds cannot escape the long arm of the law. The vile cockerel was found guilty of “laying an egg in defiance of natural law” and was condemned to death. The unholy creature was publicly burnt at the stake having been branded as “a devil in disguise”. Nice.
Also worthy of mention are the loutish Italian caterpillars who were asked to appear in court in 1659 to face charges of “trespassing and wilful damage to property”. The court, in fairness, conceded the caterpillars right to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, on the proviso that their behaviour did not “destroy or impair the happiness of man”. Clearly justice was served, as it was in Germany where established legal procedures were scrupulously adhered to in the trial of a bear that had “ravaged” some villages in 1499. The trial was delayed for over a week on a submission that the defendant had a right to be tried by it’s peers – in this case a jury of fellow bears. Clearly some of the more morally upright kind rather than the village-ravaging variety.
“All in the past” I hear you dismissively snort. Not so! The last known animal trial was held in Libya in 1974 where a dog was sentenced to a months imprisonment on a diet of bread and water for biting a man.
I can’t help but find all this, ridiculous as it seems, faintly satirical of our own justice system. Although the days of sow hanging are gone (how exactly would you go about that anyway?), I feel that similar attitudes pervading our societies red-tape-ensconced purveyors of justice. The letter of the law overriding good judgement, the ridiculous being hailed by the few as the solution for the masses. Maybe I’m being melodramatic but with burglars sueing their victims I can only think that our lunacy has simply matured a little. But whatever you say about our modern, logic-driven ideas of what justice is here in the west, as a post-modern Christian fundamentalist in the midst of it all, I can’t help but feel growing kinship with the poor old Cockerel of Basle. Although these days, of course, the Cockerel, Satanic incarnation or not, would have a phalanx of animal rights protestors demanding it’s freedom, hoards of scientists demanding that the bird be submitted for ‘testing’ and a panel of lawyers offering their services; “laid an egg that wasn’t your fault? - No win no fee”. We’ve gone from ridiculous but simple to ridiculous and complicated and we call it progress. Away with the madness; bring back the animal trials.
posted by Matt Heaton @ 12:38 am
3 Comments:
Amen to that, although I do feel that laying an egg in defiance of natural law may not receive quite the public uproar it once would. If humans can make the switch from one gender to another, why not poultry? Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "chick with a d***".
Now we guess the antecedents to some of the ridiculous trials we hear of today!
It seems to boil down to lack of common sense!
Doesn't make the job of standing upright in a silly world any easier, but it does make more entertaining!!
Welcome to the world of transvestite turkeys and crossdressing chickens - perfectly normal by todays standards. The only people being burned at the stake today are those who practice intolerance. Which in itself is intolerant...if only society wasn't so easy to ridicule.
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