He therefore gave his official blessing to the widespread persecution of cats across Europe. Gregory believed him. How then could he have impacted the good people of the 1300s? It was Gregorys past as an astute lawyer that connected him to his acts of justice within the church. Apparently snakes and scorpions were threats too. 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 Church had already accused the Waldenses of worshipping the devil in the form of a cat. Even in Egypt, where they still view cats as sacred animals, plague hits. When an animal is removed from the ecosystem (especially out of fear) it usually causes a chain reaction. These inferences have led to a story that appears to lack evidence. Retrieved from https://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/infectious-parasitic/c_ct_plague%20, Quora. Share this article your friends will love it too! 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. 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? Elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of cat killings passed into folk practices. In this case, with no cats around, disease-carrying rats multiplied like crazy, spreading the Plague. For example This demonization led to the widespread, violent persecution of black cats in particular. Not only were they a source of companionship they were also a status symbol and source of worship. Purina. Yes I agree with you on this as we can never judge history in modern times You cant even accept that cats may have offered some protection from the plague. Though the Nazca Lines themselves werent discovered until 1926, when air travel started to become common, its been a World Heritage site since 1994, and is famous for its humming bird and astronaut geoglyphs. This was seen as a critical time as the sixth crusade had recently been defeated in Damietta, Egypt. Further down the line, his influence grew larger and larger, and by 1217 he was named the papal legate and Honorius chief representative in Liguria and Tuscany. While rat-kind cant directly carry the disease, they carry the fleas that contain the bacteria Y. Pestis. Id rather see them in the wild doing what cats are meant to do than as someones indoor pet. Check out France, rats on the street, brave-pigeons without flight reflex, but no cats. CATS ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE. 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. Cat burning and other forms of cat hating have survived the centuries since. Fleas tend to prefer cat blood. For a lot of folks, everything you need to know about the Middle Ages you can find in Braveheart or Monty Pythonit was a simple, stupid period when superstition ruled the land, heads rolled daily, and people were covered in sh*t all the time. https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/eight-witchcraft-myths/. As people began to get sick and the Black Plague began spreading, more and more cats were killed. Gregory's missionary zeal among the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons in England was the first step in a process that would culminate with Charlemagne's coronation in Rome on Christmas Day in AD 800.. At the same time Benedictine monks led by Augustine were sent to Kent to convert the pagan King Ethelbert and his people, other missionaries from . The Nazcacat geoglyphwas only discovered last October. People in medieval Ypres, Belgium, had a festival called Kattenstoet where theyd throw cats from the belfry tower to symbolize the killing of evil spirits. https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.asp. But this time, Pope Francis is focusing on all pets saying that people spend way too much money on furry friends. But it starts to fall apart once you roll it around in the ol brainpan. The purpose of the papal bull Vox in Rama, was to condemn a cult that had allegedly popped up in the Rhinelandand the bull was specifically sent to the city of Mainz. In other words, the Europeans were murdering their best ally in the war against the pandemic. The same evil popes who say God created all creatures of the earth, yet they, wantonly murdered these defenseless creatures of the earth that God created. Some people even went as far as blaming. (dogma defined as the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology, or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from). Now this seems like a story of immense fiction but as it happened so recently in this modern time we have documented proof this is true so why is it so hard to believe the Pope and cat story? Wages rose fast in the absence of labor. And though its unlikely that historys most pro-natural environment pope will encourage cat bonfires, he does suggest we take a step away from the dog ice cream and cat outfits in the pet aisle. Following years brought the great plaque of insects! Is the Vox in Rama authentic? For he had inherited the problem of heresies which were blossoming across thirteenth century Christian Europe and challenging the universal church. One such individual was a German priest and nobleman, Conrad of Marburg. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,600],'historyofyesterday_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_4',119,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-historyofyesterday_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0');Im definitely tracking the cat worship concept. Just want to add that I like pretty much all animals, even dogs, but I am a cat person. 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. These new, heretical beliefs varied. This sudden lack of cats led to an increase in rat infestation which in turn increased the spread of disease, the most devastating being the Bubonic Plague. As I understand it, people used small dogs for rat hunting. While there were no immediate effects of the unjust cathunt, Europe will be affected in the years to come, with the rise of the Bubonic Plague. Ugolino di Conti was born around 11451170 in Anagni, Rome. One assault (I despise catholic church so much-am true protestant) by a pope- I do not bother with their names- was due to cat allegedly not suiting him mentioned in their bible; one pope reversed these edicts-seeing half of europe dead- and anyone abusing a cat was severely punisheds), I love catholic people, but HATE the evil infiltration that came early, making a mockery of Jesus real story, one mother superior teaching mary got impregnated by another man when engaged to Joseph; also, during world war II; we fought germany japan and ITALY; so his holie ness: (misspelled to mean he is full of holes) sat in basement- the asshole that had power to divide spain and portugal surely could have rallied his cult to fight nazis and japanese fanatics; Luther returned us, PRAISE JESUS to the real truth of Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, this jackass is an I read one briticanna entry, now I know it all- when he knows zero; he paints pope as trusting one bad apple in this eradication of the limiting factor on rats- either a sharpshooter (as healthcare provider, like my clients who read one footnote in a pharmacology book I am not immediately aware of, suddenly, they should have DVM and PHD and DO (believe it or not, I do)-. Not only that he founded the papal inquisition to prosecute heresy, but he also issues a papal bull a legal decree issued by a pope, designated as Vox in Rama that calls for crusades condemning the spread of heretics that follows Luciferianism in Mainz, Germany. But feline-human relations deteriorated sometime in the early 1230s (CE) when Pope Gregory IX issued a papal bull called Vox in Rama. 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. Missionary Activity under Pope Gregory the Great. For example, 79 medieval cats were mysteriously slain in Cambridge, England, by the townsfolk in the 13th century. By 1198 under the reign of his cousin, Pope Innocent III, Ugolino was named the cardinal deacon of St. Eustachius and quickly rose as one of the most prominent cardinals. THE HUMAN POPULATION NEEDS TO BE CUT BACK BECAUSE OF THEIR EVIL NATURE. (2010, February 4). 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. A 'bulla' is the seal on the papal bull. They came to us willingly because we offered so much prey and have been a benefit to mankind whether you like em or not. Its long-term effect, however, was to reshape the view of the cat in European society in general, morphing it from a pagan sacred animal into an agent of hell. A bit hard to read when YOU ARE SCREAMING AT ME though! Retrieved from http://www.kattenstoet.be/en/page/497-511/the-cat-throwing.html, MedicineNet.com. When an animal is removed from the ecosystem (especially out of fear) it usually causes a chain reaction. Denmarks Fastelavn held at the start of lent was based on the premise that for spring to begin, evil had to be banished. It's like visiting the museum with a close friend who just happens to know all the best stories, secrets and gossip. The Black Death or Black Plague was the original zombie apocalypse. Gregory IX. Encyclopedia of World Biography, Encyclopedia.com. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,600],'historyofyesterday_com-large-mobile-banner-2','ezslot_5',111,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-historyofyesterday_com-large-mobile-banner-2-0');Ancient Peruvians may have been attracted to cats in a way similar to Egyptians. If the Nazca thought enough of cats to etch a 37-meter geoglyph of one into the mountain that persists 2,000 years later, they must have thought highly of them. Its also true that there was a pope at the time who was not a fan of cats, who banned them. If you survived, you lost many people you loved. Pope Gregory IX did not say cats are evil, and did not order people to kill cats. Since that time, black cats have symbolized bad luck, or a curse, to people not only in Europe but throughout the world. Retrieved from https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=141316, ONeill, Tim. Wierd Tales, Vol 36. DeAgostini/Getty Images. Over many centuries, Egyptians found that a cat was the one creature that could make the world safe, according to Purina. He has a brother named Adenulphus who later on in life served as the rector of Anagni, while Ugolino himself was educated in Paris and per known tradition, Bologna. Remember: Egyptians were known for being cat lovers, and Asia is where cats originally came from. Elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of cat killings passed into folk practices. https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cats-and-the-Black-Plague, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/ravens-memory-unfair-trade/, http://historycollection.co/thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-cat-to-live-why-pope-gregory-ixs-vox-in-rama-implicated-cats-in-devil-worship/, https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Vox-in-Rama-authentic-What-effects-did-it-have, https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXII/498/1075/457108/The-Black-Death-in-Egypt-and-England-A-Comparative?redirectedFrom=fulltext, https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death, http://www.kattenstoet.be/en/page/497-511/the-cat-throwing.html, https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/eight-witchcraft-myths/, https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/plague/factsheet.asp, Abee, Holle. (Accessed June 1, 2018). The bull began by bewailing the various woes that afflicted the church- the most recent being the satanic cult identified by Conrad of Marburg as flourishing in Northern Germany. Cats, especially black cats, were now seen as evil and representatives of the . The story youre most likely to find in popular history articles goes something like this: Cats were brought to Europe from Egypt by the Romans and enjoyed a decent reputation for a long timeprobably because they were such a boon to agricultural societies. Those arrested by Conrad, therefore, had only two options: admit to heresy and spend the rest of their lives as a known former heretic or burn. The author provides citations for his claims. Tomb of Ancient Viking High King Discovered, The Most Bizarre Relics From The Ancient Funeral Rite. Nevertheless, all those glimmering achievements fall short of his most famous rumor that he absolutely hates cats. The most likely targets were often older cat-owning peasant women (The Crazy Cat Ladies of their time) who were labeled witches and often burned alive at the stake. You literally cannot even be bothered to recall the NAMES of the people youre talking about. A witch and her cat. Interesting article. This isa cautionary tale to all you cat haters out there. You can say that Im addicted to it. Meanwhile, they need that meat on the regular and know how to get it, so theyre great at killing and eating vermin. A quick Internet search brings up a series of articles, including one on the 13 reasons why cats are just plain evil. If anything, the cathunt is Konrads interpretation of the papal bull. After Pope Gregory IX associated cats with devil worship, cats throughout Europe were exterminated in droves. Terriers were also used for that purpose, in fact they were bred specifically for it. Thanks for writing this! 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