On the legal personality of animals in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The relationship between human society and the animal world is undergoing a qualitative renewal. It is becoming an increasingly clear and self-evident fact that many animals are intelligent and capable of feeling. Nevertheless, the path to the recognition, consolidation and protection of the natural rights of animals is thorny and meets the resistance of skeptics who perceive animals as movable things. Opponents of such a materialized attitude towards animals are becoming more and more every year. As well as legal norms designed to protect animals from abuse, and many of them from extinction. It is obvious that by itself a quantitative increase in legal norms aimed at protecting animals does not and cannot give an effective result, without a qualitative, ideological change in the attitude towards animals. It is necessary to recognize their natural legal personality and natural rights. In this humanistic field, the theoretical support is the attitude towards animals in medieval Europe, a distinctive feature of which is the recognition of legal personality and the right to life for animals. The legal nature of legal personality is a stumbling block for most lawyers both in Russia and abroad, which is exclusively associated with a person.Nevertheless, the historical analysis of the legal regulation of relations between humans and animals suggests that animals were legal entities in previous historical epochs. The matter of recognizing the legal personality of animals becomes a challenge for caring, liberal-oriented jurists of our time. Excellent theoretical material in this case are the processes against animals in the Middle Ages.