Popes did plenty of unusual things across two millennia, but personally dragging a rooster, pig, or swarm of weevils into a papal courtroom isn’t one of them. The famous animal trials you’ve heard about? Those belonged to local secular judges and, at times, church courts run by bishops or abbots—not the pope in Rome.
Where the animal trials actually happened
Most animal prosecutions took place in Western Europe from the late Middle Ages into the early modern period. France was the hotspot, with forays into Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. Two different systems handled them:
Secular courts tried domesticated animals—think pigs that killed a child, a bull that gored someone, a dog that mauled a neighbor.
Ecclesiastical courts (local church authorities) tackled vermin and pests—rats, weevils, caterpillars—creatures blamed for ruining crops and threatening survival.
The key point: these were local proceedings. A village, a monastery, a small town. A royal bailiff, a seigneurial judge, or a bishop’s official presided. The pope? Hundreds of miles away and uninvolved.
If you want the scholarly overview in one place, the Library of Congress explainer on medieval animal trials lays out the geography, the types of courts, and how formal these cases really were.
So why did anyone try animals?
Because it made a chaotic world feel governable. When a child died after a pig attack or locusts ate a year’s food, communities reached for the most powerful tool they had—the law. Trials weren’t just punishment; they were rituals of order. The accused animal got a charge sheet. Witnesses testified. A verdict restored a sense that rules still mattered.
It sounds absurd today, but to villagers living on the edge of famine, a public, rule-bound response was better than a shrug. The spectacle reassured the living that justice—however strangely applied—still existed.
Did a Pope ever excommunicate bugs or curse beasts?
Stories fly around about pontiffs blasting rats, flies, or cats with papal thunderbolts. Fun bar trivia, thin on evidence. What we do have are local ecclesiastical acts: bishops’ officials issuing monitory letters against pests, processions with holy water, fields blessed to ward off locusts. That’s regional clergy at work, not the pope staging an in-person trial for beetles.
Could a papal document have been quoted by locals while they fought an infestation? Sure. Could later storytellers inflate that into “the Pope put animals on trial”? Also sure. But reliable records of a pope personally prosecuting an animal? None.
“Wait—wasn’t there a truly bizarre papal trial?”
You’re thinking of the Cadaver Synod (897), when Pope Stephen VI tried the corpse of his predecessor, Formosus. It happened. It was grisly. It involved a pope. But it wasn’t an animal trial. Different scandal, different century, same knack for medieval drama.
Greatest hits from the animal docket
A few cases show what these trials looked like on the ground:
Pigs in the dock. They were the classic defendants because pigs roamed freely and could be dangerous. Records describe counsel, witnesses, and executions by hanging. For a readable, well-sourced dive, try History Today’s analysis of pig trials in France—complete with a 1457 sow-and-piglets case.
The rooster of Basel (1474). A rooster “laid” an egg—people feared it harbored a cockatrice—and the bird was tried and burned. Sounds madcap to us; made perfect sense in a world where unexplained anomalies signaled cosmic danger.
The rats of Autun. An ecclesiastical court summoned the rats for destroying barley. The defense argued their clients couldn’t safely attend because cats patrolled the streets. The judge granted extra time. Yes, seriously.
The important constant: not a papal courtroom in sight.
How lawyering worked when your client was a cow
These trials weren’t random beat-the-drum pageants. They copied human criminal procedure with unnerving fidelity: indictments, counsel for the defense, continuances, even challenges to jurisdiction. A pig might be jailed pre-trial; a pest “community” might be ordered to leave by a certain date under threat of anathema. If you squint, you can see the legal mind doing what it always does—forcing messy facts into neat boxes.
Wasn’t this about theology?
Partly. Medieval Christians believed creation was moral, ordered, and meaningful. When a creature wrecked crops or killed a child, it wasn’t just biology; it was violation. Trying the offender—animal or insect—was a way to reassert boundaries between human society and the natural world.
But there’s another layer: customary law and local politics. A seigneur showing justice. A bishop shepherding a frightened flock. A community watching its rulers perform competence. The theology helped; the social glue mattered, too.
How the “Pope tried an animal” myth sticks around
Category confusion. People blur “church court” with “the Pope,” as if every ecclesiastical action came straight from Rome. It didn’t.
Sensational shorthand. “A bishop’s vicar excommunicated weevils” becomes “the Pope put animals on trial” by the third retelling.
One true papal circus. The Cadaver Synod warps memory: if a pope could try a corpse, surely he tried animals. He didn’t—but the mind makes the leap.
What historians actually agree on
Animal trials happened—hundreds of them—across several centuries.
They followed procedure that looks shockingly legalistic to modern eyes.
Local authorities ran them. Secular judges for livestock injuries; church officials for vermin.
No credible record shows a pope presiding over an animal trial. The papacy appears in the background at most, not at the bench.
For a digestible, authoritative overview, again: the Library of Congress piece on animals on trial is excellent. And if you want one meticulous case study of pigs in court, History Today’s feature is as clear as it gets.
Final take
“Did a Pope Ever Put an Animal on Trial?” No. Medieval Europe did some wildly theatrical law, but popes trying animals is a mash-up of separate stories. Local courts—sometimes under church umbrellas, often under secular ones—handled the critters. Rome had bigger fish to fry. Or, well, bless.
