This article explores compelling and specific cases from France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which animals were formally executed for crimes. The so-called ‘medieval animal trials’ were cases in which animals were accused and sentenced for harming persons or property. In secular cases, a domestic animal (generally pigs, horses, and bulls) could be charged for killing a human and consequently be condemned to death, usually by hanging. Receipts relating to such cases can be found in seigneurial accounts which duly note the costs associated with the execution. An under-studied source on the animal trials, these records reveal the rhetorical strategies used to inform the treatment of an animal accused of committing a crime. This article looks specifically at the role of procedure as a discursive frame that transformed an offending animal into a criminal. A close examination of the receipts reveals that the trials share several features, which not only highlights the importance of following certain legal procedures, but also places the animal and its actions into pre-existing legal categories (that of ‘criminal’ and ‘crime’). These procedures include providing the appropriate judicial personnel and the right equipment for the execution. The condemned animal thus occupied an ambiguous space as a nonhuman that had been placed in legal categories made by and made for human subjects. By treating the animal as a criminal, these records provide a window into the medieval story of legal personhood and the fluidity of its borders, while also challenging the history of the human-animal relation as one built on difference and inferiority.

中文翻译：

---

在中世纪法国将动物定为刑事犯罪：行刑记录中的见解

本文探讨了十四和十五世纪来自法国的令人信服的具体案件，在这些案件中，动物因犯罪被正式处决。所谓的“中世纪动物审判”是指动物因伤害人身或财产而被判刑的案件。在世俗的情况下，家畜（通常是猪，马和公牛）可能因杀害人类而被起诉，因此通常被绞死而被判处死刑。有关此类案件的收据可在企业帐户中找到，该帐户应适当记录与执行有关的费用。这些记录在动物试验中未被充分研究，它们揭示了用于为被指控犯有罪行的动物提供治疗方法的修辞策略。本文专门研究了程序作为一种话语框架的作用，这种话语框架将犯罪动物转变为罪犯。对收据进行仔细检查后发现，这些试验具有几个特点，不仅突显了遵循某些法律程序的重要性，而且还将动物及其行为归入既有的法律类别（“犯罪”和“犯罪”类别）中。 ）。这些程序包括提供适当的司法人员和适当的执行设备。因此，作为非人类，这只被谴责的动物占据了一个模棱两可的空间，该空间被归类为人类对象和为人类对象制定的合法类别。通过将动物视为罪犯，这些记录为中世纪的法人故事及其边界的流动提供了一个窗口，