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Dear all While we are on the subjet of cats and the Middle Age, can anyone tell me why cats were asociated with the devil. A teacher once told me that the reason is that they aren-t mentioned in the Bible, conclusion they must be from the devil. Thanks for any answer. Patricia Legorreta Susan Carroll-Clark wrote: > Hi all-- > > This is slightly off-topic, but since it does relate somewhat to medieval > religion, I thought I'd ask here: > > Has anyone seen real proof that there were widespread "cat massacres" in the > Middle Ages owing to the belief that cats were creatures of the devil? > > I do know that the Lord Mayor of London ordered the slaughter of both cats > and dogs during the Great Plague because they were suspected of spreading > the disease (but not of anything else, as far as I can tell). > > I'm currently doing some contract work for World Book Encyclopedia, and > found this in the article on cats on their CD-ROM: > > "In Europe during the Middle Ages, the cat was considered a symbol of evil. > Superstitious people associated the cat with witchcraft and the Devil. For > this reason, people killed hundreds of thousands of cats. > > Experts believe that the destruction of so many cats led to a huge increase > in the rat population of Europe and contributed to the spread of the Black > Death, an epidemic of plague. This disease, which is transmitted to people > by rat fleas, killed about a fourth of the people who lived in Europe during > the mid-1300's. " > > I'm guessing that one of the cat history books cited by the author is the > source of this information, but I have yet to see real evidence for it > anywhere. I've seen scattered evidence of individual cats being killed as > witch's familiars, usually in the late Middle Ages or early modern period, > but nothing about "hundreds of thousands" of cats being killed. > > Comments, anyone? (If this is actually misinformation, I plan on letting > them know. At least they don't repeat the common "Ring around the Rosie is > about the Plague" explanation.) > > Susan %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%