In 1386 a crowd in Falaise, Normandy, gathered to watch a pig dressed in a tailored jacket and breeches be executed after a formal trial with a judge, witnesses and legal representation. This episode explores centuries of documented criminal proceedings against animals across Europe, from the 13th to the 18th century, and asks what these bizarre but rigorously bureaucratic trials reveal about medieval law, psychology and the human need for cosmic order.

The conversation explains the split between secular courts, which handled livestock accused of property damage or homicide, and church courts, which used exorcisms and holy water against locusts, rats and weevils. It covers the 1379 gang trial of two pig herds pardoned by the Duke of Burgundy, the fine known as the relief of a dead man for negligent owners, the 10th-century Byzantine letter  ...