loyal au mort

theoddmentemporium: Animal Trials One of the most bizarre...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:52:56 -0700

Animal Trials

One of the most bizarre human-animal trends of all recorded history took place in Europe during the Middle Ages. This was the formal prosecution of animals accused of committing crimes against people. Animals charged with such crimes (usually murder) were brought to court, appointed a lawyer, and tried, just as a person would be. Records show that hundreds of animals were found guilty and then executed by hanging.

Most of the trials took place in France, Italy, and Germany. There are also a few historical records of trials in other European countries and in the United States, Canada, and Brazil. Animals were tried for a variety of offenses besides murder, mostly fraud and theft. Records show that many were tortured for confessions (just as humans were) prior to the trial. It is not clear how animal confessions were interpreted, considering that animals cannot speak human languages.

Criminal proceedings against animals were handled with the utmost seriousness by medieval legal authorities. Animals that harmed humans were considered servants of the devil because they had violated God’s directive in the Bible that humans should have dominion over animals.

The vast majority of criminal defendants were pigs, probably because farmers allowed them to roam free much of the time. In 1386 a pig accused of murdering an infant was tried and convicted by a court in Falaise, France. The pig was hanged at the gallows by the village hangman. Her six piglets were charged with being accessories to the crime but were acquitted “on account of their youth and their mother’s bad example.” [MORE and EVEN MORE]

[Image: Illustration from Chambers Book of Days depicting a sow and her piglets being tried for the murder of a child. The trial allegedly took place in 1457, the mother being found guilty and the piglets acquitted.]

epouvantail: Uh-oh I cuted.

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:14:36 -0700

epouvantail:

Uh-oh

I cuted.

reike: viva la france

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:23:14 -0700

reike:

viva la france

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Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:17:14 -0700

chansondevictoire: I propose a day where we all get to stand in a line and punch England in the...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:16:14 -0700

chansondevictoire:

I propose a day where we all get to stand in a line and punch England in the face

Portugal probably won’t participate so I get two punches

I second this motion.

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Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:04:52 -0700

canaryraptor: 横

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:53:18 -0700

canaryraptor:

横

→ day thirteen

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:41:19 -0700

13.) What does your character’s bed look like when he/she wakes up? Are the covers off on one side of the bed, are they all curled around a pillow, sprawled everywhere? In what position might they sleep?

Francis likes to lounge around in bed most mornings, but once he’s up he’s up. His bed is usually neatly made and it doesn’t take much effort to keep it that way—he’s a light sleeper disinclined to tossing around. He might kick his sheets around a bit, but that’s as far as his covers get messed up when sleeping. As far as position goes, he typically sleeps sprawled out on his stomach or curled halfway into the fetal position. Most often the former.

School for Danger (1947)

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:15:00 -0700

School for Danger (1947)

→ day twelve

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:53:34 -0700

12.) How is your character with technology? Super savvy, or way behind the times? Letters or email?

France is fairly savvy with a computer and with a cell phone. He doesn’t cling to outdated technology or methods of communication—if anything, he’s one of those people who keeps their entire life in their cell phone. He schedules everything via phone and can always be contacted at that number because he and his phone are attached at the hip. It’s a smart phone, definitely.

He also took to email and the internet very easily. After years upon years of having to wait days, weeks, months to communicate with people who weren’t within plausible traveling distance (by which point information could have done a complete about-face), it’s a luxury. When it comes to matters of business, he almost always favours electronic forms of communication. With personal letters or correspondence, he’ll send the occasional letter, but those are typically very formal and less of a common thing—too impractical for frequent use.

→ day eleven

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 20:50:14 -0700

11.) Is there an animal you equate with your character?

Was there ever going to be another answer?

(But in all seriousness, no particular animal comes to mind, save lazy house cats maybe, and only for a gist of personality and fluidity of movement.)

(Francis would make a gr8 lazy house cat though.)

You know what's kind of beautiful?

Sat, 28 Jul 2012 10:35:48 -0700

timorleste:

In French, you don’t really say “I miss you.” You say “tu me manques,” which is closer to “you are missing from me.”

I love that. “You are missing from me.” You are a part of me, you are essential to my being. You are like a limb, or an organ, or blood. I cannot function without you.

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Fri, 27 Jul 2012 10:36:01 -0700

→ day ten

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:24:59 -0700

10.) Can you define a turning point in your character’s life? Multiples are acceptable.

In keeping with the idea of a nation’s life following along the edges of their history, I’m inclined to list the French Revolution as one, because it did function as a turning point, not only in French history but globally—it marked the end of kingly rule in France and changed the way people thought to some extent. Loyalty to monarchs aside, France himself would have very much sided with the ideas of the people, to a certain degree, and when a bloodless coup became impossible it would have been…disheartening, I suppose.

The Revolution also ushered in Napoleon and all that comes with him, which obviously carries a great deal of weight within nineteenth century European history. For Francis personally, it would have been a clash of ideals—as much as he sympathised with the people, he wouldn’t forsake his royal family nor willingly lead them into any sort of death.

Both World Wars as well: the first for mechanised warfare, for the trenches across the Low Countries and France and for the sheer loss of life. Because it changed the face of war in Europe, and consequently warfare everywhere. Stakes were higher than when it was two armies pitted against one another on a battlefield, and tactics would have had to change. It ushered in a very bloody century with trench and chemical warfare. If that’s not a turning point, I don’t know what is.

The second is probably painfully obvious in its effect on France as a country, but at a personal level, the postwar political climate left no room for old empires. The twentieth century was something of a whirlwind for politics and political dichotomies, but unlike power plays in previous centuries (i.e. the Great Game and its ilk) there were. Y’know. Nuclear weapons. It forced upon people a very different way of thinking that would have been natural for persons born within that era but irreversibly different for nations, one would imagine. More so than most things, a forty, fifty year threat of mutually assured destruction from opposite sides of the above-mentioned dichotomy guarantees that things are very unlikely to go back to the way they might have been in years past.

(WOW sorry this got long and rambling and off topic, I just really adore talking about the twentieth century.)

franceabout: Bonifacio, Corsica, France

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:39:05 -0700

franceabout:

Bonifacio, Corsica, France

Brigitte Bardot in Godard’s “Contempt”, 1963.

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 17:18:39 -0700

Brigitte Bardot in Godard’s “Contempt”, 1963.

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Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:32:42 -0700

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Tue, 24 Jul 2012 17:20:12 -0700

foodopia: gougeres, french cheese pastries: recipe here

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:36:02 -0700

foodopia:

gougeres, french cheese pastries: recipe here

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Mon, 23 Jul 2012 17:13:01 -0700