Urban Swine and Their Role in Daily Life
In the Middle Ages, pigs were everywhere. Unlike cows or horses, which were often kept in fields or stables, pigs roamed the streets of cities such as Paris, London, and Cologne. They served as the medieval equivalent of a waste disposal system, rooting through garbage, human refuse, and offal. Their presence was tolerated—and often welcomed—by townsfolk who benefited from their efficiency and from the meat they eventually provided.
But this practical coexistence came at a cost. These pigs were often semi-wild and aggressive, particularly sows with piglets or those competing for food. Without fencing, regulation, or consistent feeding, pigs became scavengers and, in desperate cases, predators. With children being small, slow, and often unsupervised in crowded, chaotic urban environments, the result was a series of gruesome attacks.
The Reality of Pig Attacks
Historical records from the 13th to 15th centuries contain numerous accounts of pigs maiming or killing infants and toddlers. In 1379, for instance, a sow in Paris was sentenced to death after mauling a child. More famously, a case from Falaise, Normandy in 1386 involved a sow that killed and partially ate a baby left unattended. The sow was arrested, tried in court, dressed in human clothing, and hanged in the town square—witnessed by a public audience.
This wasn’t a bizarre outlier. The concept of animal trials, especially of pigs, was common in France and parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Pigs were treated as moral agents, capable of sin and punishment. The idea may seem absurd now, but in a world where justice was deeply tied to religious doctrine and symbolic atonement, these trials made sense. They reaffirmed the moral structure of society, turning disorder into ritualized discipline. shutdown123