e with
a horse is assigned seven years penance in Burchard's
Penitential. (Wasserschleben, ib. pp. 651, 659.)

The extreme severity which was frequently exercised toward those guilty of
this offense, was doubtless in large measure due to the fact that
bestiality was regarded as a kind of sodomy, an offense which was
frequently viewed with a mystical horror apart altogether from any actual
social or personal injury it caused. The Jews seem to have felt this
horror; it was ordered that the sinner and his victim should both be put
to death (Exodus, Ch. 22, v. 19; Leviticus, Ch. 20, v. 15). In the middle
ages, especially in France, the same rule often prevailed. Men and sows,
men and cows, men and donkeys were burnt together. At Toulouse a woman was
burnt for having intercourse with a dog. Even in the seventeenth century a
learned French lawyer, Claude Lebrun de la Rochette, justified such
sentences.[53] It seems probable that even to-day, in the social and legal
attitude toward bestiality, sufficient regard is not paid to the fact that
this offense is usually committed either by persons who are morbidly
abnormal or who are of so low a degree of intelligence that they border on
feeble-mindedness. To what extent, and on what grounds, it ought to be
punished is a question calling for serious reconsideration.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] For Krafft-Ebing's discussion of the subject see _Op. cit._, pp.
530-539.

[34] In England it is not uncommon to use the term "unnatural offence;"
this is an awkward and possibly misleading practice which should not be
followed. In Germany a similar confusion is caused by applying the term
"sodomy" to these cases as well as to pederasty. Krafft-Ebing considers
that this error is due to the jurists, while the theologians have always
distinguished correctly. In this matter, he adds, science must be _ancilla
theologiae_ and return to the correct usage of words.

[35] This childish interest, with later abnormal developments, may be seen
in History I of the Appendix to this volume.

[36] The Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, appears to have
found sexual enjoyment in the contemplation of the sexual prowess of
stallions. Aubrey writes that she "was very salacious and she had a
contrivance that in the spring of the year ... the stallions ... were to
be brought before such a part of the house where she had a vidette to look
on them." (_Short Lives_, 1898, vol. i, p. 311.) Although