(ORDO NEWS) — In the Middle Ages, cats were considered unclean. They were often treated with distrust due to their perceived association with paganism and witchcraft.
But despite their association with the paranormal, medieval manuscripts contain surprisingly funny images of our pets.
From these (sometimes hilarious) images, we can learn a lot about the attitude towards cats in the Middle Ages, not least about the fact that cats played an important role in everyday life.
In the Middle Ages, men and women were often distinguished by the pets they kept. For example, having a pet monkey was considered unusual and a status symbol, as they were brought in from other countries.
Nobles kept pets as part of their identity. High status was associated with keeping an animal that was cared for, loved, and fed high quality food in exchange for companionship.
High-ranking men and women sometimes painted their portraits along with pets, most often cats and dogs, to symbolize their high position in the Middle Ages.
Cats often feature in the iconography of holidays and other domestic settings, which may indicate their status as a pet in medieval families.
In Pietro Lorenzetti’s The Last Supper, a tiny dog licks a plate of leftover food on the ground, while a cat sits by the fire.
Similarly, a man and a woman are depicted in a cozy domestic scene in a miniature of the Dutch Book of Hours, which was a popular type of prayer book in the Middle Ages, marking sections of the day with specific prayers.
A well-groomed cat is also visible in the lower left corner. Again, the cat is not the focal point of the composition or the center of the image, but in this medieval house it was appropriate.
Families in the Middle Ages gave their cats names, just like we do today. For example, the text in green ink that appears above a drawing of a cat in the margin of a medieval manuscript designates a 13th-century cat in Beaulieu Abbey as “Mite”.
Royal appeal
In a medieval home, cats received excellent care.
An early 13th century estate account at Cooksham, Oxfordshire describes the purchase of cheese for cats, indicating that they were not left to fend for themselves.
In reality, Isabea of Bavaria, Queen of France in the 14th century, blew a ton of money on pet accessories.
In 1387, she commissioned a collar embroidered with pearls and a gold buckle for her pet squirrel. In 1406, she bought bright green fabric to create special clothes for her cat.
“Rothschild’s London Clock” or “Joanna I of Castile’s Clock” are the titles of the 1500 Clockworker.
Scholars often kept cats as pets, and in the 16th century eulogies of cats were common. In one poem, a cat is called the bright and dearest companion of a scientist.
Such panegyrics imply a strong emotional attachment to domestic cats and show that cats not only cheered up their owners, but also served as pleasant entertainment from the tedious mental labor of reading and writing.
Cats in monasteries
Cats are a common status symbol in medieval church architecture.
Numerous medieval manuscripts contain, for example, miniature illustrations of nuns holding cats, and Books of Hours usually have drawings of cats in the margins.
However, the practice of keeping cats was widely criticized in the preaching literature of the Middle Ages.
The English preacher John Bromyard in the 14th century considered them superfluous and overfed accessories of the rich, who profited while the poor were left without food.
In the past, cats were also associated with the devil. Although they were admirable for hunting mice, their stealth and cunning did not always translate into traits that made them good partners.
Because of these connections, some cats were killed, which had negative consequences during the Black Death and other epidemics of the Middle Ages, when having more cats could reduce the population of rats infected with fleas.
Many people believed that cats had no place in the sacred places of religious groups due to these connotations.
However, there appear to have been no official regulations prohibiting members of religious organizations from owning cats, and the continued denunciation of the practice may indicate that domestic cats were widespread.
It is clear that cats were well cared for, although they were not always considered socially acceptable in religious societies. This is evidenced by funny images of cats that we find in monasteries.
Cats, as a rule, felt at home in a medieval family.
The connection of our medieval ancestors with these creatures was not so different from ours, as evidenced by the humorous images in which they are depicted in some medieval manuscripts and works of art.
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