The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. E. P. Evans
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the result of scholastic training and scholastic methods of investigation, 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.
Chassenée also makes a distinction between punitive and preventive purposes in the prosecution of animals, between inflicting penalties upon them for crimes committed and taking precautionary measures to keep them from doing damage. By this means he seeks to evade the objection, that animals are incapable of committing 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.”
Chassenée endeavours to clinch his argument as usual by quoting biblical texts and adducing incidents from legendary literature. The province of zoö-psychology, which would have furnished him with better material for the elucidation 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-established fact, that birds, beasts and insects, living together in communities, have certain laws, which are designed to promote the general welfare 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, recognizes 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 retributive justice. Such a proceeding, however, is arbitrary and autocratic, and if systematically applied to human beings would be denounced as intolerable tyranny. Chassenée insists that under no circumstances is a penalty to be imposed 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 fulmen. If he lays so great stress upon the observance of legal forms, 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 incorrect accentuation or false intonation in uttering 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; everything must be “well-thought, well-said and well-done,” not ethically, but ritually, as prescribed in the old Avestan formula: humata hûkhta 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 significance, and none of them can be omitted without 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 irregularity.
Sometimes the obnoxious vermin were generously forewarned. Thus the grand-vicars of Jean Rohin, Cardinal Bishop of Autun, having been informed that slugs were devastating several estates in different parts of his diocese, on the 17th of August, 1487, ordered 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 pronounced sentence on certain insects (adversus brucos seu eurucas vel alia non dissimilia animalia, Gallicè 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. Chassenée, too, endorses this view, and in proof of its correctness 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 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 (charançon) known to entomologists as rychites auratus, and called by different names, amblevin, bèche, verpillion, in different provinces of France.
Complaint was first made by the wine-growers of St. Julien in 1545 before François Bonnivard, doctor of laws. The procurator Pierre Falcon and the advocate Claude Morel defended the insects, and Pierre Ducol appeared for the plaintiffs. After the presentation and discussion of the case by both parties, the official, instead of passing 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 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 20th, 21st, 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 procès-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 Julliani agentium contra animalia bruta ad formam muscarum volantia coloris viridis communi voce appellata verpillions seu amblevins. The documents, which are still preserved in the archives of St. Julien, were communicated by M. Victor Dalbane, secretary of the commune, to M. Léon Ménebréa, who printed them in the appendix to his volume: De l’origine de la forme et de l’esprit des jugements rendus au moyen-âge contre les animaux. Chambery, 1846. This treatise appeared originally in the twelfth tome of the Mémoires de la Société Royale Académique de Savoie.
It may be proper to add that Ménebréa’s theory of “the spirit, in which these judgments against animals were given,” is wholly untenable. He