According toSmithsonian Magazine, the Nazca geoglyphs may have been used for astrological, calendrical purposes as well as religious rituals to encourage rainfall and fertility. But feline-human relations deteriorated sometime in the early 1230s (CE) when Pope Gregory IX issued a papal bull called Vox in Rama. ANIMALS ARE BECOMING EXTINCT BECAUSE OF THE GREAT AMOUNT OF NEEDLESS BABIES BEING BORN. The Obscene Kiss, Wood engraving from the 1608 edition of the Compendium Maleficarum. The papal inquisition rained down justice on heretics, the people who spoke out against church canon. *Coupons: Check out our coupons for stores like Checks Unlimited and CheapOair! Cats are not assholes, as this writer and many dog lovers like to repeat endlessly (and its SO tiresome to listen). Wikimedia Commons. The final point though is that contemporary accounts and the examination of modern doctors and historians of the evidence from them has shown bacteria that caused the Black Death can take the form of a lung infection called pneumonic plague, which was spread easily between humans. While there appears to be no evidence that Pope Gregory IX ever told people to kill cats, there have been smaller historical examples of Medieval folks killing cats for weird reasons. Thanks, Nazca, a culture that lived in what is now Peru, etched a 37-meter-long geoglyph of a cat in the coast plain some 2,000 years ago. Did Pope Gregorys comfort with the law cause him tooverstephis station as the pope? In other words, the Europeans were murdering their best ally in the war against the pandemic. Poor cats though. On June 13, 1233, he issued a papal decree, Vox in Rama, based on bogus evidence provided by a Spanish Inquisitor. One such individual was a German priest and nobleman, Conrad of Marburg. One example is the idea that Catholic fear drove people, including Pope Gregory, to wipe out cats, which resulted in a population explosion among plague-infected rodents, thus leading to the Black Death. The bull does not, however, dictate that Catholics across Europe kill all cats to stop Satan. A pandemic so severe that it kills more than 50 million people in Europe in a couple of years, and killed more than 200 million people worldwide. Interesting article. Exterminating cats during the black plague epidemic in the 14th century: Cat owners were often accused of witchcraft, and often murdered along with their pets. Conrads methods for identifying heretics were questionable to some. as a dvm (research quickly with phd, now DO, but still love animals) I agree about cat fanatics but this loser has all wrong about the need for cats to kill the Y Pestis flea vector rats; also, that species of flea does not infest on cats or dogs- their anticoagulant is perfect match for RATTUS NORweigica, and humans; not even mice suit them; his map of plague is laughingly inaccurate. I dont know what to make of the authors contention that we like to hate on the middle ages. Do you believe that cats are invested with the spirit of Mr. Morningstar. I get why we have dogs. Forgive us! says the master, and the one next to him repeats this, a third responding, We know, master! A fourth says And we must obey. 4, So whats up with this? Classical Cats: The Rise and fall of the Sacred Cat, Donald W Engels, Psychology Press. To start, lets look at what Pope Gregory IX actually said about cats in his bull (special formatting is my own): Not only were they a source of companionship they were also a status symbol and source of worship., Egyptians have had a long love affair with cats. Next the myth of toxoplasmosis! CATS ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE. Evil cradles in the Austin Powers franchise. Reigning during the Western Schism, he was opposed by the Avignon claimant Benedict XIII and the Pisan claimants Alexander V and John XXIII.Gregory XII wanted to unify the Church and . Was considering writing a song about the folly of feline flaying, now Im not so sure. They were shunned, persecuted and often killed by people who feared that they . The mass murder of cats was not the only cause of the Black Plague, but it removed a crucial natural predator of the flea-carrying rats that spread the disease. The author provides citations for his claims. For example, 79 medieval cats were mysteriously slain in Cambridge, England, by the townsfolk in the 13th century. However, amongst the warped fantasies were some bare facts from past beliefs which lent themselves to the dark image of witchcraft the church was attempting to conjure. As mentioned, this Pope initiated what has been described as the feline Holocaust 3 in Europe. The truth of the plague variations that wiped out Europe is, they were the results of a perfect storm. They fly in the face of the Christian idea of God putting the natural world and its creatures here for humanitys benefit. Since the ninth century AD, the Canon Episcopi of the Catholic Church had deemed belief in witchcraft to be a heresy in itself. Cats absolutely devastate wildlife when out in nature, killing millions of birds and having been responsible for extinction of species. Scientists back in the 19th century found out that the real transmission is through touch, and the most common carrier of the disease is the natural enemy to the previously butchered feline friend the rats. On a personal level, my parents taught me the value of travel when I was young, and since then,Ive been an avid traveler I have visited 20 countries. Which means that killing off the rats main predators was probably not the best idea. My guess is this had something to do with ancient cat worship in places like Egypt, which made its clams by farming the fertile land around the Nile.1. A 'bulla' is the seal on the papal bull. The Black Death in Egypt and England: A Comparative Study. Thats serious.. After all, the devil was already at work through heretics. Wildcat7 Youd rather see an animal domesticated for thousands of years in the wild doing what they are meant to do than indoors as pets? Honestly, I feel like even thinking that the cathunt resulted or directly influence the black plague is a bit of a stretch. The purpose of Vox in Rama, rather, was to condemn a cult that had allegedly popped up in the Rhinelandand the bull was specifically sent to the city of Mainz. This bull, the story goes, declared cats as the instruments of Satan, and set Medieval Europe on a great cat purge, with special attention paid to black cats, who were particularly Luciferian. I laughed to I almost passed out One thing though some of the Pussy Persecution may have derived from the Witch connection. Guess what? If anything, the cathunt is Konrads interpretation of the papal bull. It was Gregorys past as an astute lawyer that connected him to his acts of justice within the church. Thus, whether the population of cats went down or not, the plague would still exist. While the papal bull was sent to several rulers such as Emperor Frederick II and King Henry of Germany, the central prominent figure that assumes that task very seriously is one Konrad von Marburg. A witch riding a broomstick with a black cat. Since the reign of Gregory, folks at the time had taken a disliking for cats, especially the black ones. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXII/498/1075/457108/The-Black-Death-in-Egypt-and-England-A-Comparative?redirectedFrom=fulltext, Kattenstoet. Apparently snakes and scorpions were threats too. They definitely dont stop fleas. Public Domain. But today, the association between cats and Halloween persist, perhaps ironically because spurious associations between cats and Satan worshiping that the Catholic Church pushed, some 800 years ago. (2007, September 1). Even today, the police department of Salem, Massachusetts, where witch trials executed 20 women for witchcraft, uses the image of a witch on a broomstick on theirpolice cruisers. What he did caused the persecution of domestic and stray cats for 500 years. Further, the plague wasnt a one-off event in Europe. The Vox described the depraved rituals of the cult in detail, portraying the devil worshipped by the witches as a shadowy half cat and half man figure. Not a cat person? Pope Innocent VIII came to power in the late 1400s, during the throes of witch crusades in Western Europe. Not sure I am convinced either way, but people (especially those who prefer dogs) do like to hate on cats, so it is not a stretch to believe that they have been killed en masse in any era. THE HUMAN POPULATION NEEDS TO BE CUT BACK BECAUSE OF THEIR EVIL NATURE. CATS ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE & ALWAYS WILL BE BETTER THAN HUMANS. Retrieved from https://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/infectious-parasitic/c_ct_plague%20, Quora. If the Black Death was airborne, then rats had nothing to do with it, exonerating Gregory. Gregory IX approved the Northern Crusades of the Teutonic Order, the purpose of which was the baptism of the Baltic pagan peoples, and which led to the attempts of the Catholic colonialists to seize the lands of Pskov and Novgorod principalities. Before the prospect of burning at the stake for having contact with the purring pets, Catholics around the the continent began slaughtering any feline that entered their property. You cant even accept that cats may have offered some protection from the plague. To learn more about me and my digital travels, visit myTwitterpage. For some reason, we find the idea that our ancestors were dumb rather appealing. NASA is launching the DNA of some of the most prolific presidents in US history, The 1985 story of a bear that ate 77 pounds of Plabo Escobar's finest cocaine. Good read, thanks! It came from was Asia, but it is still believed by many to have traveled on the backs of fleas living on rats. Lets see if the math adds up. However, history shows that the Black Death, which ravaged Europe in the mid 1300s, was actually caused by rats and the fleas on them. The Vox in Rama encouraged Conrad of Marburg to overreach himself and that same year he accused Henry II, Count of Sayn of taking part in satanic orgies. Wierd Tales, Vol 36. Cats are natural hunters. For example, 79 medieval cats were mysteriously slain in Cambridge, England, by the townsfolk in the 13th century. Cats were later blamed for the Black Death (13461352), though rats were actually the culprit. During these witch trials, a woman even testified in court that cats spoke to her, and threatened to hurt her if she didnt abuse children in the town. As I understand it, people used small dogs for rat hunting. The flea that bit humans was specific to the black rat anyway. Firstly, they are greeted by an abnormally large frog or toad, whose behind they must kiss and then a man of fearful pallor and thinness whose task was to suck out every last remnant of faith in the Catholic Church from their soul. https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.asp. The Pope also gave Conrad carte blanche to deal with all heretics as he saw fit- including permission to disregard usual church rules. Cats Blamed for Spreading the Plague During the Middle Ages, it wasn't uncommon for cats to be killed, given their association with evil, Compora says. (Accessed June 1, 2018). The Black Death or Black Plague was the original zombie apocalypse. So Gregory began to formalize and promote practices that formed the basis of the later medieval inquisition. Indeed the belief that the torture or killing of cats could break spells continued across northern Europe. His papacy started when hereticism run rampant in Europe, and yet, by the end of his term, he saw the completion of one of the most important canon law in the Catholic Church known as the Decretales Gregorii IX, Decretales Gregorii IX, Based on these confessions, in 1233 Pope Gregory IX issued an official papal decree declaring that Satan was half-cat and sometimes took the form of cat. (Accessed 2018, June 1). His condemnation of cats may not be responsible for the spread of black death, but it's definitely connected to the decline in cat populations at the time, and the proliferation of rat populations. Pope Gregory IX (1147-1241) was probably the world's worst cat hater or at least he did the most damage to cats. Without them, pests would run wild, and not just rats. A witch and her cat. But some of their adversaries do. Often fueled by a fear, individuals are often capable of doing illogical or terrible things as groups when given permission by authority figures. For he had inherited the problem of heresies which were blossoming across thirteenth century Christian Europe and challenging the universal church. Some historians have forgiven the rats. In 2021, I dont think that most Catholics or people of other religious believe that cats are evil. They were hunted into extinction ! A bit hard to read when YOU ARE SCREAMING AT ME though! Yet, in 2014 Pope Francis sparked an uproar by telling a girl whos cat who had died that she would be reunited Gods creatures in Paradise except for cats, who end up in hell. Gregory IX (Wikimedia Commons) Pope Gregory IX was a pretty good pope by medieval standards. Many believed this was the end of the human race, and who could blame them? That was when Ugolino was over 80 years old. Dogs are sweet but they dont really have that self respect that cats do. I thank you for your service to this great multiverse. Hera are six really weird pets that you could actually own. I am here because of a PBS documentary on cats that I saw recently. When I graduated college,I began living my own dream as a reporter for a news media outlet. Because the powers that be dictated that the cat composed one of the main identifiers of a witch, the Church officially excommunicated the entire species. Retrieved from http://www.kattenstoet.be/en/page/497-511/the-cat-throwing.html, MedicineNet.com. Cat burning became a favorite medieval pastime in France, where cats were suspended over fires in cages or doused and set alight- even chased on fire through the streets by cat chasers. 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