Not much happened in the Middle Ages, right? Probably some plague, some hunting witches, and not a lot of bathing. There were a lot of peasants, some higher-ups that weren't so covered in mud, and strange women lying around in ponds distributing swords. That last part might not be totally historical, but there were a lot of weird things going on in the centuries of the Middle Ages. They're not all what you think, either.
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ANIMALS WERE PUT ON TRIAL FOR THEIR 'CRIMES'
You've seen the headlines, usually atop one-sided accounts of dog racists shouting about how certain breeds are just bad dogs. (Not true. Dogs prefer being good dogs, given the chance.) It turns out chasing dogs — and other animals — for their actions is a very medieval thing to do, with one major difference. Way back then, they got a trial.
The whole thing was really bizarre. According to Wired, animals were held morally accountable for crimes like assault and even murder starting in 824, and the practice continued into the 1700s. Animals found guilty of their crimes would often be either burned alive or hung. If that wasn't possible, they'd be ordered to leave town at a certain day and time. Yes, that happened, and it was a big deal. In the 1500s, Bartholomew Chassenee made a name for himself defending hordes of rats, and in 1587 weevils were taken to court for invading St. Julien, France.
The 1906 book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals lists around 200 animals who were executed in medieval Europe for various crimes. Pigs were a frequent offender, like the French pigs who killed Perrinot Muet in 1379. (Only three of the herd were executed, perhaps as an example to the others.) Not all animal trials ended in execution, as the courts did occasionally recognize them as victims of violence instead of as perpetrators, but many ended with horrible acts of cruelty.
THE CADAVER SYNOD
In 897, Pope Stephen VI held a bizarre trial at the Basilica San Giovanni Laterano in Rome, and ushered it in what even devout Catholics called the most corrupt era of the papacy. There are a ton of complicated historical maneuverings against the background of this one, but we'll get right to the point. Stephen VI had been pope for less than a year when he ordered his predecessor, Pope Formosus, to dug up and place on trial. Formosus had already been excommunicated, and the trial was pretty much Stephen yelling at a corpse for crimes like wanting to be pope. Atlas Obscura says it's possible he was trying to take attention away from his own crimes, that he wanted to cement some political alliances, or he was just nuts. Smart money's on all three.
Formosus was found guilty, he was stripped of his papal finery, had his blessing fingers cut off, and reburied. Stephen then had him dug up yet again and thrown into the Tiber.
Rumors started circulating that his body had washed up and started performing miracles because why not? Mob justice came for Stephen, and according to Christianity Today, the nutty pope was removed from office, installed in a jail cell, and mysteriously strangled not long after. The next pope — Theodore II — overturned the verdict of the Cadaver Synod and outlawed the whole idea of corpse trials, although it shouldn't really need outlawing.