
Why Cats Were Hated in Medieval Europe - diodorus
http://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/02/why-cats-were-hated-in-medieval-europe
======
LoSboccacc
"according to medieval writers and other accounts"

I don't see mentioned anywhere in the page that taking accounts written in
middle ages is going to incur serious bias and how author corrected for it.

not many were able to write and chances are if you were one of those you had a
lifestyle that involved far less plowing.

anyway, same sources different conclusions
[https://medievalisterrant.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/cats-
as-p...](https://medievalisterrant.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/cats-as-pets-in-
the-middle-ages/)

witchcraft at that time was the terrorist of modern ages, anyone could be it,
and dog were counted as familiar as much as cats. if you lived closed to a
city, it was a dangerous proposition, but then even floating on water was a
'proof' \- sure you didn't want to be caught in the fisher nets and burned at
a stake, but I don't see much of the rural population going off without cats -
that is, if they wanted to survive winters.

sadly it seems there are very few studies based on more than writing (i.e.
bones - [https://www.academia.edu/1061079/LUFF_R._M._MORENO-
GARC%C3%8...](https://www.academia.edu/1061079/LUFF_R._M._MORENO-
GARC%C3%8DA_M._1995_._Killing_cats_in_the_Medieval_Period._An_unusual_episode_in_the_history_of_Cambridge_England._Archaeofauna_4_93-114)
)

bottom line: there is quite a disconnect between what they were writing and
what they were doing.

~~~
jon-wood
I sent this article to my wife, who is doing a PhD in medieval history,
specifically looking at women who've taken religious vows, and she had this to
say:

"Cats weren't just popular with nuns, but particularly with anchoresses
[effectively female hermits]. Which I suppose makes sense because you'd want
the company! The 13th century rule for anchoresses 'Ancrene Wisse' forbids all
pets except a cat. So they can't have been considered that demonic "

~~~
dang
Wow. Please send more HN articles to your wife! Even better, convince her to
comment here.

~~~
laura-wood
Why hello.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
One of my favourite types of humour is the unexpected development.

This made me LOL. Would that I could upvote more than once.

------
ajuc
Eastern Europe (starting with Poland) had different attitudes, there were very
few witch hunts in medieval Poland (mostly they happened later, in protestant
parts), and cats weren't persecuted. Catholicism in general wasn't very fond
of witch hunts (it was forbidden by priests most of the time, because "spells
doesn't work, there's just one God"), they were hard on the heretics instead.

Some people attribute this (big amount of cats) as one of the reasons Poland
went through black death relatively unharmed (also the mostly rural
population, of course).

~~~
mamon
"they were hard on the heretics instead" \- I can't recall any significant
harm done to heretics in Poland, quite contrary: it was considered safe haven
for the heretics from neighbor countries.

~~~
ajuc
That part I meant as for Catholicism in general. The only heretics persecution
in Poland I can remember was Arian brothers expulsion.

------
mirimir
Well, they say that if you die alone with your dogs, they'll guard your body.
But cats, they'll just eat it ;) In fact, your dogs will too, if they get
hungry enough. But they'll be guilty about it, for whatever that's worth.

~~~
JetSetWilly
Cats are obligate carnivores, generally they will eat flesh and that's it.
They are also usually smaller, a smaller body means running out of resources
faster. Dogs are a bit more omnivorous than cats.

So in the situation where they are trapped with the owner's body, a cat runs
out of options faster than a dog. A dog will chow down on house plants,
fruit.. or anything it can in extremis. A cat rather more quickly finds itself
in the "eat this body or die" circumstance.

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crpatino
Link-bait-y and extremely poorly argumented.

tl;dr - Author claims medieval Europe hates cat. Author picks and chooses
examples of people in medieval Europe that wrote bad things about cats. In the
last paragraph, Author summarizes and downplays evidence of people liking cats
in medieval Europe.

------
seunosewa
The part where they said Muslims liked cats while Christians liked dogs is
interesting. I wonder if this is still a bit true.

~~~
sandworm101
The total rule against dogs is a relatively modern interpretation in islam. It
isn't even to do with the dogs themselves, but that most dogs were smelly and
unclean creatures. There is plenty of evidence that the ban really only
applied to mongrels, unclean street dogs. Working dogs
(hunting/herding/guarding) particularly those similar to salukis, were not
considered unclean and were kept. The Quran specifically states that animals
caught by trained hunting dog may be eaten (005:004) with the necessary
implication that they may be kept and trained.

The fear of black dogs is very much ingrained in many Muslim countries. But
that tradition predates islam altogether and is widespread even in the west
(black dogs are far less likely to be adopted).

~~~
_nedR
I don't know whether there has been a modern reinterpretation. The way i
remember being taught in school, Muslims are allowed to keep dogs for hunting
and guarding purposes, but we are not allowed to touch them (except perhaps on
the head?), or let them into our houses.

Not sure what exactly has changed except perhaps we don't hunt much any more.

~~~
sandworm101
It's like the jewish rules about food. The evidence is that the original rules
were probably much less strict, but over the years various scholars tighten
some rules just to be on the safe side, or to see more devout than everyone
else. So it will depend on which modern expert you talk to.

------
mrinterweb
"They feel after him and when they have found him they kiss him under the
tail." \- That is funny and gross, but still funny.

------
xivzgrev
In terms of Medieval people hating cats, there was a proclamation from Pope
Gregory the 9th in early 1200's where he issued a bull against a cult. This
bull apparently included "When the meal had ended, the sect would arise and a
statue of a black cat would come to life, walking backwards with its tail
erect. First the new initiate and then the master of the sect would kiss the
cat on the buttocks"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_IX#Demonization_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_IX#Demonization_of_cats)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_in_Rama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_in_Rama)

------
michaelsbradley
Although small house and ferile cats are obviously not lions, I imagine that
there is at least some connection to the First Epistle of St. Peter, i.e. when
it comes to perceived associations between cats and the devil:

"Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring
lion, seeking some one to devour." \- 1 Pet 5:8 (RSV)

[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+5%3A8&v...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+5%3A8&version=RSV)

------
teekert
I hate cats now. They shit in the gardens of other people. I think they should
be forbidden to walk freely outside.

~~~
gadders
To be fair, so do foxes.

~~~
teekert
Guess it depends on where you live. We have had days where we couldn't sit in
the garden due to the smell. Also I had to through away my home grown tomatoes
because they were basically growing in cat-shit.

~~~
megaman22
How's that any different than fertilizing them with, say, cow manure, which
your store-bought organics might be using?

I'm not certain of the chemical composition of cat manure, maybe its nitrogen
content is too high or it screws with the soil pH?

~~~
crpatino
I not an expert on the science behind it, so please correct me without
freaking out if I get some detail wrong... but herbivore' manure may be
applied directly to the soil. Pet's (dogs and cats) manure must be composted
first.

There are 2 plausible reasons why this may be so. The first is that large farm
herbivore's (cows and horses mostly) are different enough from human beings
that the diseases they carry cannot cross the species barriers so easily, not
so with pets. Composting kills bacteria in at least 2 ways: it heats up and
all but the thermophilic bacteria get killed, and competition from sturdier
aerobic non-pathogenic bacteria in the compost pile drive off the rest after a
couple dozen generations. This is specially important for dogs since we have
been co-evolving to eat roughly the same foodstuffs for a couple million
years. But I really don't see much of the same concerns for cats.

The other idea is that cat's feces are what gardeners call "hot" themselves.
It has nothing to do with temperature, but with overly high nitrogen contents.
I don't have a reference at hand, but the basics of compost chemistry say that
nitrogen based substances react and break down cellulose in the plant derived
parts of the compost pile, making the carbon in it usable by the lifeforms in
the soil. This has the side effect of coupling the toxic nitro in the catalyst
(urine and feces) with carbon atoms, changing it into non-toxic forms that are
themselves usable by the lifeforms in the soil as well.

