gallows

For centuries, medieval Europe It was a place where justice was dispensed not only in the courts, but in the squares, in full view of everyone, with public rituals designed to repair order when someone broke it in an intolerable way. At that time, the fear of the unforeseeable did not come only from armies, plagues or famines, but also from what moved through the streets and corrals. In the France Medieval times, for example, the public ritual of punishment (carriage amidst mockery, solemn sentence and execution before the community) did not always have a human as the protagonist: sometimes, the condemned was a pig. The image, which today seems like an oddity from a black chronicle or a folkloric exaggeration, was real enough to leave repeated documentary traces: animals led as prisoners, hung upside down until they died and treated, in practice, as perpetrators responsible for a crime that had broken the social balance. The pig as a real threat The frequency of these cases is better understood by remembering that the medieval world lived attached to animals and their risks. Pigs, in particular, were useful because they ate everything and could feed on scraps, but that same omnivorous condition made them dangerous if they roamed free near small children. The records collect numerous episodes in which pigs killed and even devoured children, a violence that today clashes with the modern image of the docile and slow animal, but which was then associated with specimens closest to the wild boar: fast, strong and capable of imposing themselves physically in seconds. Medieval archives collect cases like the one from 1379when a group of pigs in Saint-Marcel-lès-Jussey killed the son of a swineherd, or the from 1386 in FalaiseNormandy, where a sow destroyed a child who ended up dying. Also that of 1457 in Savigny, Burgundywhen little Jehan Martin was killed by a sow and, especially disturbingly, his six piglets were found nearby, stained with blood. They were not vague rumors, but stories that were fixed with names and placesand that fueled the need for a public response that was not limited to a simple private loss. In France, these events often led to in judicial proceedings formalities in which the animal was imprisoned, transferred and executed as if it were a common criminal. Sources talk about expenses registered normally (cart, prison, executioner even brought from Paris) and an administrative routine that suggests that, for the people of that time, it was not an absurd spectacle, but a legitimate mechanism of justice. The strangeness, therefore, was not that there was violence, but rather that the violence was channeled through a trial with the appearance of ordinary procedure. When money is not enough A practical explanation of these processes was that medieval justice tended to seek reconciliation between partiesand many disputes could be resolved with compensation or agreements. But when a child death came into the picture, that logic was broken: the damage was too serious and the money could be insufficient to close the social wound. In that context, the court intervened to “take control” of the conflict, separate it from private revenge and offer an institutional solution that would distribute the emotional and political burden of the outcome. Trials also functioned as a form of organize the story: It was not just about punishing the animal, but about clarifying human responsibilities. If a pig was known for being dangerouswhy was he allowed to loiter near children? Was there negligence on the part of the owner? a chain of negligence? There was even a suggestion of the possibility of darkest questions: if the child was “unwanted”, if he or she was deliberately left in a risky situation or if the accident hid an intention. The court, by intervening, not only imposed a penalty, it produced an official explanation that the community could accept. Sometimes, the local machinery was not the last word and the matter escalated towards higher authorities. In the case of 1379, some of the accused pigs belonged to an abbey, and from there a petition was sent to Duke Philip “the Bold” requesting clemency. They defended that their animals had not participated and that they were “well-behaved pigs.” The duke heeded the request and issued a pardon for the animals of the abbey, showing that these processes, strange as they may seem, were inserted in real networks of power, influences and political decisions. Far from being simple superstition or peasant rage, these executions could serve to assert authority. The right to erect a gallows and execute criminals it was a privilegeand taking a case to the end allowed a local lord to exhibit the ability to punish and control order. There are episodes that reinforce that reading: a pig murderer from the 15th century it remained imprisoned five years before being executed, and formal letters were sent for permission to build a gallows. When the duke finally agreed, the triumph was not only symbolic: in addition to showing power, the lord stopped carrying the practical cost of keeping the animal imprisoned and feeding it. Plus: another key is the medieval vision of reality as a logical system created by godwith animals destined to serve humans. For a pig to devour a child was an unbearable investment of that order, a rupture of hierarchies that demanded public reparation. In that mental framework, the trial and execution were not theater: they were a way of “putting back together” what had been broken, of affirming that the world still had rules and that chaos, even when it came from an animal, could be put back into place by a solemn act of justice. Image | Ernest Figueras, Zoe Clarke In Xataka | The Middle Ages were not as dark as they told us In Xataka | 900 years ago, Europe had its own Manhattan: the impressive skyscrapers of more than 100 meters of Bologna