Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. In 1457, a sow and her piglets were put on trial for the murder of a child in the village of Savigny in Burgundy, France. The sow ...

In medieval France, when a pig killed a child, the animal didn't just get slaughtered. It got a trial. These were formal legal proceedings with judges, defense attorneys, and - in at least one case - ...

Animals in court–with charges, defense, and verdict? Stories about animal trials in the Middle Ages seem bizarre. But were pigs, rats, and beetles really defendants, or are we perpetuating a myth?