Most Bizarre Medieval Facts - Stories of Medieval Mischief

Medieval trial by combat typically adhered to ethical hitman rules: no women, no children, no lepers. These were at the mercy of their champions, men willing to fight in their stead. But there was one exception: marital disputes. Since a wife would have a hard time talking her husband into picking a fight with himself (and if she could, why get divorced at all), European courts allowed her the rare privilege of picking up arms herself.

This practice was commonplace and weird enough to warrant an entire chapter in the dueling manual written by legendary fencing instructor Hans Talhoffer. In his 1467 book, Talhoffer showcases the insane lengths judges went to make the husband-and-wife duel a fair fight. As opposed to regular duels, the defendant wasn't allowed to pick their weapon of choice. Women, unaccustomed to the tools of war, were given the Medieval equivalent of a prison tube sock filled with used batteries -- a rock wrapped in a piece of cloth.

For all its strange sexism, the rules of the marital duels did seem to work in the woman's favor as there are several recorded occasions of a scorned wife towel-flicking her terrible husband into submission. And while marital Duels were typically not to the death, someone was always bound to die. If the man lost, he was to be executed with honor in the town square. And if the woman lost, it was her time to go into a hole to be buried alive. It just goes to show that progress is always two steps forward, one step back -- into a chest-high hole.

Dancing mania (also known as dancing plague, choreomania, St. John's Dance and St. Vitus' Dance) was a social phenomenon that occurred primarily in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected men, women, and children who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, in the Holy Roman Empire (in modern-day Germany), in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe; one particularly notable outbreak occurred in Strasbourg in 1518 in Alsace, also in the Holy Roman Empire (now France).

One of the more unusual aspects of the Medieval world was that animals could be put on trial like human beings. Yes, there was such a thing as legal animal trials! While the veracity of many Medieval animal trials is difficult to ascertain, it is without doubt that some of them took place. All kinds of animals could be brought before a secular or ecclesiastical court, either as individuals or as groups.

A wide range of crimes could be committed by these animals including murder, being an accomplice in bestiality, and damage of crops and property. If found guilty, the larger animals would be punished with execution or exile, whereas the smaller ones would be excommunicated or denounced by a church tribunal. One of the more detailed examinations of this strange subject is Edmund P. Evans’ The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals , which was published in 1906.

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