Editing History of zoophilia (section)

==Europe: Middle Ages==
In the Church-oriented culture of the Middle Ages, zoosexual activity was met with execution, typically burning, and death to the animals involved either the same way or by hanging.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}} Sects deemed heretical by the Church such as the Hussites were accused of bestiality.<ref name="Out Of Print Marmor 1980 p. ">{{cite book | author=Out Of Print | last2=Marmor | first2=J. | title=Homosexual Behavior | publisher=Basic Books | year=1980 | isbn=978-0-465-03045-3 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rBkbAAAAYAAJ | access-date=2022-10-16 | page=}}</ref> Masters comments that:
:"Theologians, bowing to Biblical prohibitions and basing their judgements on the conception of man as a spiritual being and of the animal as a merely carnal one, have regarded the same phenomenon as both a violation of Biblical edicts and a degradation of man, with the result that the act of bestiality has been castigated and anathematized [...]"{{citation needed|date=December 2017}}

In 1468, Jean Beisse, accused of bestiality with a cow on one occasion and a goat on another, was first hanged, then burned. The animals involved were also burned. In 1539, Guillaume Garnier, charged with intercourse with a female dog (described as "sodomy"), was ordered strangled after he confessed under torture. The dog was burned, along with the trial records which were "too horrible and potentially dangerous to be permitted to exist" (Masters). Other accusations of bestiality in the period include the trials of Thomas Weir<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GQlJj3_koNUC&dq=thomas+weir+bestiality&pg=PA168 | title=The Culture of Controversy: Religious Arguments in Scotland, 1660-1714 | isbn=9781843837299 | last1=Raffe | first1=Alasdair | year=2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EK3tCwAAQBAJ&dq=thomas+weir+bestiality&pg=PA191 | title=Witchcraft and Folk Belief in the Age of Enlightenment: Scotland, 1670-1740 | isbn=9781137313249 | last1=Henderson | first1=Lizanne | date=8 April 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mGMUBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22thomas+weir%22+%22atherton%22&pg=PA271 | title=Incest and Agency in Elizabeth's England | isbn=978-0812203301 | last1=Quilligan | first1=Maureen | date=7 June 2011 }}</ref> and John Atherton.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FT8FO95uMyYC&dq=john+atherton+bestiality&pg=PA215 | title=The Ancient and Modern History of the Maritime Ports of Ireland | isbn=9783954273522 | last1=Marmion | first1=Anthony | date=June 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ncRpEAAAQBAJ&dq=john+atherton+bestiality&pg=PT89 | title=Trial of Translation: An Examination of 1 Corinthians 6:9 in the Vernacular Bibles of the Early Modern Period | isbn=9781725277557 | last1=Wirrig | first1=Adam L. | date=4 April 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oGKJDwAAQBAJ&dq=john+atherton+bestiality&pg=PA357 | title=Sex and the Church in the Long Eighteenth Century: Religion, Enlightenment and the Sexual Revolution | isbn=9781786731579 | last1=Gibson | first1=William | last2=Begiato | first2=Joanne | date=28 February 2017 }}</ref> In 1601, [[Claudine de Culam]], a young girl of sixteen, was convicted of copulating with a dog. Both the girl and the dog were first hanged, and finally burned. In 1735, François Borniche was charged with sexual intercourse with animals. It was greatly feared that "his infamous debauches may corrupt the young men."  He was imprisoned, and there is no record of his release.{{citation needed|date=December 2017}} Historians claim there were more than a thousand executions recorded for bestiality in Sweden throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.<ref name="Österberg 2010 p. 170">{{cite book | last=Österberg | first=E. | title=Friendship and Love, Ethics and Politics: Studies in Mediaeval and Early Modern History | publisher=Central European University Press | series=The Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lectures Series | year=2010 | isbn=978-615-5211-79-9 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q_0OEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA170 | access-date=2022-11-30 | page=170}}</ref><ref name="Krogh 2011 p. 59">{{cite book | last=Krogh | first=T. | title=A Lutheran Plague: Murdering to Die in the Eighteenth Century | publisher=Brill | series=Studies in Central European Histories | year=2011 | isbn=978-90-04-22137-6 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ccyAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 | access-date=2022-11-30 | page=59}}</ref>

On the other hand, other accounts are more possibly fictitious, such as Pietro Damiani's, who in his "De bono religiosi status et variorum animatium tropologia" (11th century) tells of a Count Gulielmus whose pet ape became his wife's lover. One day the ape became "mad with jealousy" on seeing the count lying with his wife that it fatally attacked him. Damiani claims he was told about this incident by Pope Alexander II and shown an offspring claimed to be that of the ape and woman. (''Illustrated Book of Sexual Records''){{citation needed|date=December 2017}}

Clergyman and chronicler Gerald of Wales claimed to have witnessed a man having intercourse with a horse as part of a pagan ritual in Ireland.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_/ai_n12800341 Last Night's Television: Always let a sleeping pagan lie]</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jul/20/television.artsfeatures | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Please, please tell me now | date=July 20, 2004 | accessdate=May 4, 2010 | first=Nancy | last=Banks-Smith}}</ref>

Although thousands of female witches were accused of having sex with animals, usually said to be the Devil in animal form or their familiars, court records available in Europe and the United States, dating back to the 14th century and continuing into the 20th century, nearly always show males, rather than females, as the human parties in court cases. (''Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality'', Humboldt University){{citation needed|date=December 2017}}