ing the jurisdiction of courts, the functions of judges, and other characteristic questions of civil, criminal, and canonical law. Ani mals, he says, should be tried by ecclesiasti cal tribunals, except in cases whe/e the penalty involves the shedding of blood. An ecclesiastical judge is not competent (in causa sanguinis), but can impose only can onical punishments. This is why the church never condemned heretics to death, but, having determined that they should die, gave them over to the secular power for condemnation, usually under the hollow form of recommending them to mercy. Another point which strikes us very comically, but which had to be decided before the trial could proceed, was whether the accused were to be regarded as laity or as clergy. Chassenee thinks that there is no need of testing each individual case, but that animals should be looked upon as lay persons. This, he declares, should be the general presump tion; but if any one wishes to affirm that they have ordinem elericatus and are entitled to benefit of clergy, the burden of proof rests upon him, and he is bound to show it. Possibly our jurisprudent would have made an exception in favor of the beetle, which entomologists call elerus; it is certain, at any rate, that if a bug bearing this name had ever been brought to trial, the learning and acuteness displayed in arguing the point would have been astounding. We laugh at the subtilties and quiddities of mediaeval theologians, and the silly questions they so seriously discussed. But this was the men tal habit of the age, the result of scholastic training and scholastic methods, which tainted law no less than divinity. Sometimes the obnoxious vermin were generously forewarned. Thus the grandvicars of Jean Robin, Cardinal Bishop of Autun, having been informed that slugs were devastating several estates in his diocese, on the 17th of August, 1487, ordered public processions to be made for three days in every parish, and enjoined upon the said
slugs to quit the territory within this period under penalty of being accursed. On the 8th of September, 1488, a similar order was issued at Beaujeu. The curates were charged to make processions during the offices, and the slugs were warned three times to cease from vexing the people by corroding and consuming the herbs of the field and the vines, and to depart; "and if they do not heed this our command, we excommunicate them and smite them with our anathema." In 15 16, the official of Troyes pronounced sentence on certain insects which laid waste the vines, and threatened them with anathema unless they should disappear within six days. Here it is expressly stated that a counselor was assigned to the accused, and a prosecu tor was heard in behalf of the aggrieved in habitants. As a means of rendering the anathema more effective, the people are also urged to be prompt and honest in the pay ment of tithes. Chassenee, too, indorses this view, and in proof of it refers to Malachi, where God promises to rebuke the devourer for man's sake, provided all the tithes are brought into the storehouse. Felix Malleolus, in his "Tractatus de Exorcismis," states that in the fourteenth cen tury the peasants in the electorate of Mayence brought a complaint against some Spanish flies, which were accordingly cited to appear; but " in view of their small size and the fact that they had not yet come to their major ity," the judge appointed for them a curator, who "defended them with great dignity"; and, although he was unable to prevent the banishment of his wards, he obtained for them the use of a piece of land to which they were permitted peacefully to retire. How they were induced to go into this res ervation and to remain there we are not in formed. In 1 5 19, the commune of Stelvio, in Western Tyrol, instituted proceedings against the moles on account of damage done to the fields " by burrowing and throw ing up the earth, so that neither grass nor green thing could grow." But " in order
