Humanimal

The question arose in class on Thursday, why are we even discussing the so-called ‘medieval animal trials’? While there is certainly evidence that some very odd trials were conducted, we can say little conclusively given the very limited nature of that evidence; namely, just about everything we know of animal trials is based on and structured by the research of one man at the turn of the twentieth century, E.P. Evans. This presents a number of problems, that of trusting a single conveyor for all of this information aside. Our idea about where and when the trials were conducted is biased by where Evans concentrated his research.  It is questionable whether the two types of trials described and exemplified in Evans’ research, the trying of individual domesticated animals through criminal court systems and that of vermin in ecclesiastical courts, are indeed variations of the same phenomenon. What’s more, as Beirnes makes a point of saying, Evans’ research and the presentation of his findings was motivated by contemporary concerns for animal rights and penal reform (41). That said, by no means do I think these concerns of Evans should disqualify his legacy, but they do help to situate it.

Taking Evans’ data as it is, though, the question is begged of why animal trials are even spoken of as a medieval phenomenon. While it does seem to begin to occur with some frequency in the 13^th century, the record is thin, and the heyday for animal trials, in fact, were the 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th centuries. On this count, we seem to be discussing an early modern phenomenon rather than a medieval one—if such a distinction means anything at all. Furthermore, the culmination of this “medieval” phenomenon, as represented in the records we have, coincides with the burgeoning of the very enlightenment ways of thinking that one would think would militate against it.

I want to see if, for a moment, we can put generalizations about all of Europe and the Middle Ages aside and think about the facts as best we have them of these animal trials, and see, based on what we know of the practices, what we can say. To restrict this exercise even more, I’ll only consider criminal trials of animals, the particular cases of which I think we can more readily believe to be instantiations of the same phenomenon. Ok, really, my aim is to defend Enders’ article, “Homicidal Pigs and the Antisemitic Imagination.” I was rather surprised by the wholesale dismissal of Enders’ argument in class, which I find, even forfeiting her more ‘precarious’ claims (which, honestly, I don’t feel compelled to do), to be more than plausible.

For one, I do not think we can deny that the trial of a sow is a humanizing process. As many of our readings pointed out, the courts went to great lengths to give individual animals going through the judicial system the same treatment as human beings. Questions of will and guilt aside, the trial of a violent animal involved the ascription of human qualities to the animal on trial (209). The law punishes transgressions, but its domain being the human, it cannot punish an animal for being an animal—which wouldn’t appear to be a transgression anyhow. Nor, though, can it punish an animal for being somewhat human (on the face of it, this would be an improvement), lest the order of the world be quite upset. The law takes care of criminals; only humans are criminals. Thus the whole process of making animals on trial human enough such that they can be condemned for their inhumanity, for their animality. Notice that it is a very human barbarity which is recast and naturalized in the animal as it is put on par with the human criminal.

The connection between the humanization of animals on trial and the animalization of humans appears too obvious to me to ignore. Are they anything but two sides of the same coin? What was it that human criminals were punished for but the transgression of the boundary between human and animal? This is the very sophistry Enders talks about by which “humanity” is defined and nourished (204).

Another thing: a couple of the readings raised the question of whom the trials and executions of animals were conducted for. Did people think that other animals could gain some kind of moral instruction from witnessing the execution of one of their peers? Probably not, but here’s what we can say with confidence: the trials and executions of individual animals were conducted and watched by human beings. Who do you think was affected by and internalized the spectacular production of humanity and inhumanity and its violent consummation?

Now the big question in regard to Enders’ argument: the connection between homicidal pigs and the antisemitic imagination. If humanity is defined, precariously, by its opposition to animality, marked off by the dividing line between these categories, then what of the people who are unwelcome in the human community? Is it at all a stretch (as seemed to be implied in class) that Jews would be identified with the animal (as evidence shows they were) and that there would be some sort of connection between the trials and execution of humanized animals and the public attitudes toward animalized humans (as the striking parallels indicate)? I want to join Ender in pushing against a focus on the “symbolic importance” (Cohen 75) of animal trials, a focus which can obscure the very real effects of violent public ritual. That said, we should also keep in mind that the same ritual can have different effects and meanings for different members of a community. There is a camp in anthropology that views rituals as arguments made in the public sphere. Though they may be condoned by authority, tradition, or majority, by the nature of their being arguments, they leave room for both agreement and disagreement.
        I have more to say on this, but I just want to end by re-iterating a point I was trying to make in class. The claim was brought up, and it was also in one of the readings, that it is inappropriate to think of animal trials as animal cruelty because the animals received due process of law and were in all respects treated as humans—indeed, we can think of this treatment as quite charitably kind. I could hardly disagree more. A cruelty/kindness model so far from saturates the possibilities of treatment as to be useless. We would not say, ‘oh, at least that Christian fellow and his Jewish lover got due process of law before being completely degraded and burned alive’ (Enders 223). I struggle to see the resemblance between institutionalized cruelty, incorporation into a system which is biased against you, and kindness.

-JS