Animal Rights History »» Renaissance & Early Anti-Cruelty Legislation

The Renaissance and Early Anti-Cruelty Legislation

1452-1516 | BSH-INT-JUS-REL USE-VEG | Leonardo Da Vinci, Notebooks

1516 | VEG | Andrea Corsali's Letter to Guliano de Medici confirming Leonardo Da Vinci's Vegetarianism

1516 | REL-VEG | Sir Thomas More, Utopia

1536-1559 | REL | John Calvin, Institutes

1539-1564 | HUM-REL | John Calvin, Commentaries

But it must be remembered that men are required to practice justice even in dealing with animals. (John Calvin, Commentaries [1539-1564])

1547 | REL | John Calvin, Ordinances

1584 | INT-REL | John of the Cross, A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ

1575| BSH-HUM-INT-REL-USE | Michel Eygeum de Montaigne, Essays, Of Cruelty, Of Custom, and How a Received Law Should Not Easily be Changed, An Apologie of Raymond Sebond

1583 | BSH-REL | Phillip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, "Bear Baiting," "Cockfighting," "Hawking and Hunting"

1590 | BSH-REL USE-VEG | Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

c1593 | POE | William Shakepeare, Venus and Adonis

c1593 | POE | William Shakepeare, Titus Andronicus

c1597 | POE-VEG | William Shakepeare, King Henry, Part Two

c1600 | POE-VIV | William Shakepeare, As You Like ItBSH-POE

c1602 | POE-VEG | William Shakepeare, Twelfth-Night; or, What You Will

1603 | BSH-INT REL-USE VEG| Plutarch's, Morals and Lives orginally written in the first century are translated into English. Included are the essays Whether it be Lawfull to Eat Flesh or No, Of Eating Flesh, That Brute Beasts Have Use of Reason and Marcus Cato Censor.

c1603 | POE | William Shakepeare, Measure for Measure

c1603 | POE-VIV | William Shakepeare, Cymbeline

Thomas Wentworth's Act of 1635 in Ireland, as well as Nathaniel Ward's contribution to the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 establishes American and English law against cruelty to animals almost 200 years prior to the passage of Richard Martin's Act of 1822, a Bill to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle. Since these contributions were largely unknown until the late 20th century, the modern era of anti-cruelty legislation is usually traced back to the precedence set by "Martin's Act" and the amendments and legislative enactments against cruelty to animals that followed. However, it is King Ashoka, in the 3rd century BCE that we must honor as being the first to decree law not only for the protection of animals, creating the first list of "protected" species but, progressive even by today's standards, proclaiming the slaughter of animals as food or for sacrifice unlawful.

1635 | LAW-USE | Ireland Parliament [Thomas Wentworth], Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and Pulling the Wooll off Living Sheep, 1635

1640 | USE-VEG | Frances Quarles, Enchiridion

1641 | LAW-USE | Massachusetts Bay Colony [Nathaniel Ward], Massachussetts Body of Liberties, "Of the Brute Creatures "

Transcriber's Notes

Animal Rights History

These pages are part of an ongoing effort to provide free online access to historical literature on animal rights, animal welfare and the humane movement against animal cruelty.

Quotes briefly introduce animal rights activists, animal welfare advocates and authors; the history of animal rights, animal welfare and animal protection; and the literature of the humane movement against cruelty to animals.

Free Online Library Complete Texts · Accessible Online · Free of Charge Links to primary source historical literature document the authenticity of quotations while providing more in-depth insight into the ideologies of the humane movement against cruelty to animals and additional historical perspective on the continuing struggle for animal rights, animal welfare and the protection of animals.