On a winter's day in 1386, a crowd gathered in the Norman town of Falaise to watch a convicted murderer led to the gallows. The condemned had stood trial, witnesses had testified, and sentence had been passed. Yet the prisoner waiting to die was not a man, but a pig.
No creature appears more frequently in the history of medieval animal trials than the pig. Across Europe, particularly between the 13th and 16th centuries, swine were prosecuted for attacks on children, destruction of property and even homicide. Their trials followed recognisable legal procedures, complete with formal indictments, witness testimony and public executions.
Arguably the most famous of these cases began when a sow attacked an infant lying in its cradle in Falaise, France. Contemporary records state that the animal had "eaten the face of the child of Jonnet le Macon... the said infant died from the injuries." The sow was seized, brought before the local court, convicted and sentenced to death.
According to later descriptions of the proceedings, the sow's snout and one foreleg were mutilated before execution, apparently echoing the wounds suffered by the child. It was then hanged in the public square. Although historians debate whether every detail of these later accounts is accurate, there is little doubt that the execution itself took place. The hangman's receipt records payment "for having dragged and then hanged... a sow of approximately three years of age," along with reimbursement for "a new glove when the Hangman performed the said execution."
This execution became one of medieval Europe's most famous examples of animal justice. It was later commemorated in a fresco on the west wall of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Falaise. The painting survived for more than four centuries before being whitewashed during the 19th century, leaving written descriptions as the only record of the event.
The Falaise sow was far from unique. Medieval court records contain several prosecutions of pigs, largely because they were among the few domestic animals allowed to roam freely through towns and villages. In 1457, another sow was tried in Savigny, near Paris, after killing a five-year-old child. The mother sow was convicted and executed, while her six piglets were also brought before the court.
The piglets were ultimately acquitted, the judges concluding there was insufficient evidence that they had taken part in the attack despite being present at the scene. Other prosecutions are recorded from towns across France, including cases at Mortagne, Pont-de-l'Arche and Saint-Quentin, where pigs were tried for killing or maiming children.
These proceedings followed recognisable legal procedures, with animals imprisoned, represented before the court and, if convicted, publicly executed. Their frequency reflected a grim reality of medieval life: free-ranging pigs were genuinely dangerous, and fatal attacks on unattended children were not uncommon.
To modern readers, the spectacle seems almost absurd. Yet to medieval communities, prosecuting a dangerous animal was neither theatre nor superstition. It was a public demonstration that justice had been restored after a terrible crime. As legal historian Paul Friedland observes, "Justice demanded the ritual of punishment," allowing those who witnessed it to see that order had been re-established.
