Cats are famous on the internet and in real life for being the cutest, fuzziest, and silliest creatures we’ve ever seen.
One just can’t resist scrolling past a video of a cat causing mischief or curling up adorably in a patch of sun. Have cats always been this way, though? Did they hold the status of our favorite fur balls back in ancient times?
Medieval manuscripts can tell us a lot about how our ancestors treated cats. During the Middle Ages, cats had a bad reputation because they were associated with witchcraft and paganism, which meant they were often treated with suspicion. Still, some medieval records contained more positive descriptions of cats.
In the Middle Ages, people were identified by the kinds of animals they kept. For instance, pet monkeys were a symbol of wealth.
They were considered exotic because they were imported from faraway lands. Caring for an animal with no other purpose aside from companionship signified high status.
Upper-class men and women in the Middle Ages often had their portraits done with cats or dogs to show off their elevated societal status.
Therefore, cats were an important part of medieval daily life. Images of cats appeared in feasts and other domestic settings.
Medieval families gave their cats names, just like we do today. For example, a 13th-century cat in Beaulieu Abbey was called “Mite,” according to the green ink lettering printed above a rough sketch of a cat in the margins of a medieval manuscript.
Pet cats were also well taken care of. Historical accounts of the manor at Cuxham mention that cheese was bought for cats in the early 13th century.
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In addition, the 14th-century queen of France, Isabeau of Bavaria, spent large sums of money on accessories for her pets.
She commissioned a collar with pearls and a gold buckle for her pet squirrel in 1387. She also purchased bright green cloth in 1406 to make a special cover for her cat.
Scholars kept cats for companionship as well. In the 16th century, eulogies about cats were fairly common, suggesting that people had strong emotional attachments to the felines.
The cats helped raise the scholars’ spirits and were pleasant distractions from the tedium of reading and writing.
While cats received praise for being good pets, they were also heavily criticized in medieval religious literature. A 14th-century English preacher named John Bromyard considered cats to be useless and overfed while the poor went without.
Furthermore, cats were associated with the devil. They were admired for their skills in hunting mice and other pests, but people thought they were supernatural and ended up killing some cats.
Overall, cats were looked after pretty well, even though they may not have been accepted in religious communities. Clearly, medieval people’s relationships with cats were not so different from our own.
