Let's talk about what in the popular imagination is the most trusted companion of witches: the cat. We will do it above all from a historical perspective, focusing on a piece of news that, in recent times, has gained a certain following.
once again let's talk about black legends and clichés about the Middle Ages, but on this occasion we are faced with a particular case: the erroneous historical consciousness does not derive from a hasty or superficial analysis of historical facts, as in the case of the Malleus Maleficarum (a famous forgery that was relatively successful at the time); this time it is simply a hoax concocted without the slightest display of style.
It is a noticia which, despite its falsity, has received immense credit among Internet users; yet another confirmation that too many people still don't bother to verify information and make sure it's not fake. false news, before sharing it.
To deny the news, it should be noted, it was enough to find the text (available on the web) of the papal bull cited there.
Before proceeding to the "denial", we will begin with an account of the facts as reported.
How the "story" about the extermination of cats is told
In AD 1233 Pope Gregory IX issued the papal bull » Vox in Rama «: The order contained in this authoritative document? Exterminate the cats! In fact, the feline lineage would have represented the incarnation of Satan on Earth for the ecclesiastical hierarchies. This led to the systematic extermination of cats in Europe: wherever they were found, they were burned in the public square. This terrible persecution against our mustachioed friends would have lasted for more than three centuries!
The scarcity of cats contributed in a few years to the proliferation of mice: the result was that in five years the Black Death carried away more than a third of the European population.
The true story
In 1233 AD C., Pope Gregory IX, in the bull » Vox in Rama "reported the story of one of his German correspondents about a satanic cult that had spread in Germany: during meetings of this cult, The devil appeared in the form of various animals, including a black cat. Nowhere in the papal bull is there any order or mention of the extermination of felines.
We know that medieval literature made use of a wide range of symbols and allegories: not infrequently an animal was used to symbolize a positive or negative aspect of reality: the black cat, the snake and the owl, for example, are in the Western tradition symbols of darkness and evil.
Revelation
In the New Testament, respectively in the Apocalypse and the Acts of the Apostles, Satan is uniquely identified with the serpent of Genesis and compared to a lion that prowls everywhere looking for someone to devour.
However, medieval man was intelligent enough to distinguish between symbol and fact. Proceeding by analogy, we can remember that the devil was often associated with the image of a goat, yet there is no record of any extermination of goats in the Middle Ages!
The cat and the witch
A piece of news repeated several times in the last year tells us how in Triora, a Ligurian town known for its witch hunt at the end of the XNUMXth century, the municipal administration will erect a statue in memory of all the cats killed by the inquisition. It is worrying that a public administration gives credence to certain historical falsehoods.
On the other hand, it must be said that the Municipality of Triora lives a kind of perpetual Halloween, attracting tourists mainly for its “museum of torture”. Precisely in this museum are exhibited the various trinkets and gadgets that are now unanimously considered false by historians. The locals also talk about a collective bonfire in which about thirty witches were burned: If this were true, it would be perhaps the largest massacre in history of people accused of witchcraft, outnumbering the convictions of Salem witches. The most widely shared historical opinion is that, instead, all the defendants, at the end of a process that took too long, were acquitted and released.
Sometimes in late medieval literature the cat is associated with witches and covens, or sometimes with heretics, but there is no convincing evidence to indicate that they despised the beast at that time more than at others.
My friend Pangur Ban
" My cat Pangur Bán and I have the same task:
happily runs chasing mice, I feel chasing words
night and day." (…)
Those mentioned are the first words of a poem written around the XNUMXth century by an Irish monk amanuensis. Note the affectionate way in which the writer refers to the animal.
At the end of the Middle Ages the general feeling of benevolence towards cats does not seem to have diminished, in the "Rule of the anchorites", a monastic manual written in 1200, we read: "You will not possess any animal, my dear sisters, except only one cat «.
Go for the mice!
The function of the cat as an effective weapon against mice was a shared notion from ancient Egypt and it maintained this role even in the Middle Ages. Cats were especially widespread in monasteries: The warehouses of religious orders housed large quantities of food that could be easy prey for mice. But it was the libraries that were most threatened by this threat; we can dare say that dealing with rats was even worse than dealing with a fire; all it took was a couple of mice to make a nest among the shelves, and the monks would soon find themselves invaded by rodents and with half the library gnawed through. The only valid solution was to acquire one or more cats.
sometimes it was customary create special circular openings in the internal doors of the buildings that allowed the passage of felines from one room to another: this This is the case of Exeter Cathedral, in England. The books of the same cathedral also keep track of, among other things, the maintenance expenses of the cats!
imported cats
Further diminishing the idea of a visceral hatred of cats in the Christian West are the many events linked to the importation of the animals into Europe.
In the Late Middle Ages, the entry into Europe of the Carthusian cat can be traced. It was probably imported by Crusaders returning from the Holy Land and later raised in the monasteries of the Carthusian order, from which it takes its name.
cats in homes
Equally great was the success of cats, as well as skilled mouse-catchers, such as Pets. The chronicles say that Getrudis of Nivelles, an abbess who lived in the XNUMXth century AD, had numerous cats with her, treating them with care and affection. She still remembers today Santa Gertrudis as the patron saint of cats. A famous XNUMXth-century mural depicts the saint trying to get one of her feline friends to play with a spindle.
Even Santa Chiara and her nuns, according to hagiographic stories, formed a bond with a cat, "sora Gattuccia", who was so loved that her presence was tolerated even during religious functions. The fact that this story is contained in a hagiography, that is, in a text written to teach religious morality, makes us understand that the figure of the cat did not bother so much.
In 1265, just a few decades after the aforementioned papal bull was issued, it is said that Eleonora Plantagenet, Countess of Leicester and granddaughter of Richard Cuordileone, bought a cat.
power and cats
Various other members of the nobility, as well as churchmen during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance kept cats as pets.
Isabella d'Este, wife of the Marquis of Mantua, had a cat named Martino that she loved very much: on his death in 1510, the noblewoman had a funeral ode composed for him.
Even beyond the Middle Ages, cats remain undaunted by the Pets of the ecclesiastics: Cardinal Richelieu (the main antagonist of Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers," to be clear) felt an almost obsessive affection for for their cats: at his death in 1642 he was fourteen years old, and a part of the high prelate's estate passed to them.
The XNUMXth century plague
The origins of the plague that ravaged Europe beginning in 1347 are still unclear. Well-established hypotheses attribute the spread of the disease to poor hygiene and a lack of sewage treatment. Today we know that in medieval times, although there may not have been a full awareness of the importance of bodily cleanliness, habits related to personal hygiene already existed.
Furthermore, it is widely attested that from the 13th century onwards there existed, at least in the main urban centres, well-constructed sewage systems, perhaps "inherited" from the Roman sewers, and that, where there was no sewage system, rudimentary methods of waste disposal were fashionable.
The truth is that the epidemic did not develop in Europe but was imported from the East through the main trade routes. ANDIn the holds of the ships rats proliferated; fleas on the mice could bite and infect the sailors, or they could contract the disease directly through contact with the inhabitants of the landing sites.
So we can conclude that not only did the extermination of cats never occur, but the overabundance of cats certainly would not have prevented the spread of the pestilence.