Barnes. Pdf

injuriam fecisse, quod sensu caret. 
In the second place, additionally and alternatively, I will submit that even if the court were to have jurisdiction over the 
bestioles, it would be unreasonable and unlawful for the present tribunal to consider their case, for it is a well-known and long-
established principle that the accused may not be tried in absentia. It has been stated that the woodworm have been formally 
summoned by writ to appear before this court on this particular day, and have insolently refused to appear, thereby forfeiting 
their normal rights and permitting them to be tried in absentia. Against this argument I propose two counter-arguments. First, 
that while the summons for attendance was properly issued, have we any proof that it was accepted by the bestioles? For it is 
established that a writ must not just be issued but delivered, and the procurator pour les habitans has failed to indicate in what 
manner the woodworm did acknowledge the writ. Secondly, and further, it is a principle even more firmly established in the 
annals of the law that a defendant may be excused default or non-appearance if it can be shown that the length or difficulty or 
danger of the journey render it impossible for attendance at the court safely to be made. If you summoned a rat before you, 
would you expect it to proceed to your court while passing through a town full of cats? And on this point, not only is the 
distance from the abode of the bestioles to the court a monstrous league for them to travel, it is also one which they would 
accomplish under mortal threat from those predators which attend on their humble lives. They may, therefore, in safety and in 
legality and with all respect to this tribunal courteously refuse to obey the writ. 
In the third place, the summons is incorrectly drawn, since it refers to the woodworm who currently have their habitation in 
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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½
 
Chapters 
22
the church of Saint-Michel in the village of Mamirolle. Does this mean every single bestiole that is in the church? But there are 
many who live peaceable lives offering no threat whatsoever to the habitans. Must a whole village be summoned to court 
because there is a gang of robbers living within it? This is no sound law. Further, it is an established principle that defendants 
should be identified to the court. We have under examination two particular felonious acts, the injury to the leg of the Bishop's 
throne, and the injury to the roof of the church, and it is plain from any scant knowledge of the nature of the animals being 
charged that those woodworm which currently make their habitation in the leg could not possibly have had anything to do with 
the roof, and that those woodworm which make their habitation in the roof cannot possibly have had anything to do with the 
leg. Thus it is that two parties are charged with two crimes without separation in the writ of party and crime, which renders the 
summons invalid for failure of specificity. 
In the fourth place, and without prejudice to the aforesaid, I will argue that not only, as we have proposed, is it contrary to 
Man's law and the Church's law to try the bestioles in this fashion, it is also contrary to God's law. For whence came these tiny 
creatures against whom the solemn might of this court is being flung? Who created them? None other than Almighty God who 
created us all, the highest and the lowest. And do we not read in the first chapter of the sacred book of Genesis that God made 
the beast of the earth after his kind, the cattle after their kind, and every living thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, 
and God saw that it was good? And further did not God give unto the beasts of the earth and unto every creeping thing every 
seed upon the face of the earth, and every tree upon the face of the earth, and every fruit of every tree as meat? And yet further, 
did he not give order unto them all to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth? The Creator would not have instructed 
the beasts of the earth and every creeping thing to multiply had He not, in His infinite wisdom, provided them with food, 
which He did so, expressly giving the seeds and the fruit and the trees as meat. What have these humble bestioles done since 
the 
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day of Creation but exercise the inalienable rights conferred on them at that time, rights which Man has no power to curtail or 
abrogate? That the woodworm make their habitation where they do may prove inconvenient to Man, but that is not sufficient 
reason to seek to rebel against the rules of Nature laid down at the Creation, such rebellion being a direct and insolent 
disobedience to the Creator. The Lord breathed life into the woodworm, and gave him the trees of the earth for meat: how 
presumptuous and how perilous it would be for us to seek to countermand the will of God. No, rather, I submit to the court that 
we should direct our attention not to the supposed felonies of God's humblest creation, but to the felonies of man himself. God 
does nothing without a purpose, and the purpose in permitting the bestioles to take up their habitation in the church of Saint-
Michel can have been none other than as a warning and a punishment against the wickedness of mankind. That the woodworm 
were allowed to infest the church rather than any other building is, I further submit, an even more severe warning and 
punishment. Are those who come before the court as petitioners so certain of their obedience to God, so sure of their humility 
and Christian virtue that they would accuse the humblest animal before accusing themselves? Beware the sin of pride, I tell 
those petitioners. Cast out the beam from your own eye before you seek to extract the mote from the eye of another. 
In the fifth and final place, the procurator pour les habitans asks the court to hurl against the bestioles that bolt of lightning 
known as excommunication. It is my duty to submit to you, and without prejudice to any of the aforesaid, that such a 
punishment is both inappropriate and unlawful. Excommunication being the separation of the sinner from communion with 
God, a refusal to permit him to eat of the bread and drink of the wine that are the body and blood of Christ, a casting-out from 
the Holy Church and its light and its warmth, how therefore can it be lawful to excommunicate a beast of the field or a 
creeping thing from upon the earth which has never been a communicant of the Holy Church? It cannot be a fit and proper 
punishment to deprive a defendant of that which he has never possessed in the 
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first place. This makes bad law. And secondly, excommunication is a process of great terror, a casting of the sinner into 
fearsome darkness, an eternal separation of the sinner from the light and from the goodness of God. How can this be an 
appropriate punishment for a bestiole which does not possess an immortal soul? How is it possible to condemn a defendant to 
eternal torment when he does not have eternal life? These animals cannot be expelled from the Church since they are not 
members of it, and as the Apostle Paul says, 'Ye judge them that are within and not them also that are without.' 
I ask, therefore, that the case be rejected and non-suited, and without prejudice to the foregoing, that the defendants be 
acquitted and exempted from all further prosecution.