The vineyards of San Julien had been destroyed.

Crops pillaged.

The harvest, ruined.

And French winemakers were not happy about it. But at least they

knew who to blame, and so eager for retribution, the winemakers took the vandals to court. Now, we have

to be clear here. It wasn't prank-pulling teenagers or even rival farmers who ransacked St. Julian's

vineyards. In fact, the culprit wasn't even

human. It was a weevil, a rather many weevils. That's right. In 1545, French winemakers

took a bunch of bugs to court, the crime chowing down on grapevines. Granted, the chair of

the ecclesiastical court, Francois Bonavar, found this just as

ridiculous as you probably do today.

He ordered the winemakers to chill out and repent for the sin of blaming an innocent animal

for snacking.

But in 1587, the winemakers tried again, and this time they weren't backing down. For eight

wild months, the winemakers and the weevils battled it out in court, or rather the humans

battled it out. The weevils had no idea what was happening. The defense, yes, the weevils

had a lawyer, argued that as God's creatures, it was their

prerogative to eat what they wanted. The mayor of San Juliane even got involved offering

the weevils the opportunity to move to a sanctuary under threat of excommunication.

Now, before you ask exactly how one excommunicates a swarm of weevils, I cannot answer that

question.

Unfortunately, the final page of the court proceedings didn't survive the centuries.

...