Title: Medieval Cats: Claws, Paws, and Kitties of Yore
Author: Catherine Nappington
Publication Date: March 2025
Summary:
This book is a hilariously weird compendium of cats from medieval manuscripts and artworks. Unsurprisingly, cats in the Middle Ages were like cats of today. While playful and affectionate, they were also mischievous, lazy, and sassy. Medieval Cats depicts furry fiends doing typical feline activities. They lick their butts, catch mice, and judge humans with serious side-eye.
While all that is to be expected, artists in the Middle Ages also portrayed cats engaging in human behavior. Illuminated manuscripts show cats playing musical instruments, reading, and dressing as nuns. Much of this iconography was common back in the day and certainly has meaning behind it.1 But to modern viewers, it’s equal parts amusing and just plain weird.
Author Catherine Nappington supplements the artwork with fun cat facts, proverbs, excerpts from literature, and historical tidbits. She gives us a peek into the lives of medieval cats and their owners.
What I enjoyed about Medieval Cats
Medieval Cats is a fun, easy read. It’s not a scholarly treatise on felines in the Middle Ages, but rather a fun collection of artwork and tidbits about cats from primary sources. The balance between visuals and text is just right. The book makes a lovely gift for cat lovers (or haters) and medievalists alike because it’s informative and accessible to all readers. It’s short, sweet, and to the point.
Medieval Cats is also quite funny. I laughed out loud many times. Nappington pays attention to detail, with humor infused into everything. For example, the table of contents is called “Ye Olde Contents” and the chapter titles are equally hilarious: “Catt Satteth upon the Matteth,” “Get Thee to a Cattery,” “Nippeth and Nappeth,” and “The Catt Outteth the Baggeth.”
Additionally, Nappington includes amusing titles for artworks accompanied by made-up quotations from the cat’s perspective. Perhaps my favorite image in the whole book (because it’s so freaking weird) has the following caption, “Sorry, Jesus, but my bum’s not gonna clean itself!” / “Christ in Majesty (while a cat licks its bum), MA 112, f.7r, Germany 1440-1460.”
I also appreciate Nappington’s commitment to citing her sources. From the artworks to the literary and historical documents, everything contains bibliographic information. This lets me know she did her homework, but it also provides me with the necessary information should I want to access the original sources.
Fun Things I Learned About Medieval Cats
Kitty Cats in Trouble
- Cats had it both good and bad in the Middle Ages. As domestic pets who took care of the rodent problem, they were status symbols. In the later Middle Ages, however, cats were associated with the devil. It was not cool to be a cat when the medieval version of the Satanic Panic hit.
- On June 13, 1233, Pope Gregory IX declared all cats demonic. He famously said, “Thou shalt not suffer a cat to live.”
- Walter Map was a sicko. In 1180, he wrote about osculum obscenum, which is kissing a cat’s anus in a devil worshipping ritual. WTF are you doing in your spare time, Walter?
- Every summer solstice in France, Parisians executed cats by hanging them above a pyre and roasting them. They believed this cleansed evil. ASPCA would like a word.
Cats Being Cats
- In 1420, a Dutch monk discovered his cat took a piss on his beautiful manuscript. He was so angry that he drew his cat on the page and cursed it. The monk’s feline wasn’t the only one to make its mark on history. In 1445, a cat ruined the pages of an Italian manuscript by walking on it with inky paws.
- Cats were official employees of the Exeter Cathedral in England from 1305-1467. They were on the payroll for getting rid of rodents. The cathedral has a cat flap, believed to be the oldest in existence.
- Ailuromancy is a way to predict the weather by watching a cat’s movements.
- Isabeau of Bavaria, 14th century queen of France and wife of Charles VI, spent a shit ton of money on a tailored bright green coat for her cat. Me too, girl. I don’t have a cat, but my dog Lucky has so many cute winter sweaters.
Cats in Literature & Language
- William Shakespeare hated cats, and really, can you blame him? There are many cat quotes in his plays, and none of them are good. Here’s one from Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1. Mercutio: “Good king of cats, I want to take one of your nine lives.”
- The idiom “cat got your tongue” refers to the superstition that a witch’s black cat would render a person speechless by stealing or paralyzing their tongue.
Recommendation
Totally Historic approved! Medieval Cats is a light-hearted, humorous compendium of cats doing weird shit in the Middle Ages. For those of you who are scholars, I encourage you to pick up the book and enjoy it for what it is. It’s not an academic piece of literature, but it does have hilarious historical information and tons of citations to original source material.
Footnotes
- Playing instruments refers to catgut, a fiber in animal intestine walls used as strings for medieval instruments. ↩︎
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