"Cats’ shovel slave" has become a proud nickname for a large number of cat lovers. For many young artists, the elegance, charm and mystery of cats provide endless comfort and warmth for their lives. In history, cats, a mysterious creature, have also experienced the fate of being respected or slaughtered.
According to a study in Science in 2007, there is almost no difference in gene arrangement between the subspecies of modern domestic cats and the wild cats in the Middle East, which proves that domestic cats really originated from the Middle East alone. Archaeologists once found a wild cat buried in a man’s cemetery about 9500 years ago in Cyprus, which provided some evidence for the early relationship between human beings and cats. In the ruins of Quanhu Village in China (Yangshao and Longshan Cultural Sites in Neolithic Age), eight bones of two cats dating back to 5,300 years have also been found. According to the collagen isotope analysis of their bones, the food of these two cats is mainly meat and millet, which proves that these cats are probably fed by humans.
In the medieval and early modern history of Europe, there have been many large-scale massacres against cats, and they are often associated with witch hunting. Why did Christian culture in the late Middle Ages have such a strong hatred for cats?
This story begins with the ancient Egyptian civilization in the Middle East, the birthplace of domestic cats.
The Best God of Ancient Egypt: the Golden Age of Cats
Among ancient civilizations, the worship of cats by Egyptians was the most striking. In Egyptian mythology, the sun god Dora once turned into a cat, defeating the python Apophis, which prevented the sun from rising and setting in the west, so people regarded the cat as the incarnation of the god. As early as the second dynasty (2890 BC), the worship of the cat god Best appeared in Lower Egypt and the Nile Delta. In Upper Egypt, Sekhmet, the god of war and healing, mainly appeared as a lion-faced woman. After the unification of upper and lower Egypt, around the first Millennium BC, the God Best and the God Sehmet gradually merged and appeared as a cat-faced woman. Especially after the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt moved its capital to Thebes, the image of the cat god Best became more fixed.
Cat god best
With the popularity of domestic cats in Egypt, the image of their gods has gradually changed from the god of war to the god who guards their homes, but it still has the symbolic significance of Pharaoh defenders. For example, in the Middle Kingdom period, the statue of Best depicted a cat face, but it often attached a lion face mask to show its original wildness and strength.
Herodotus, a Greek historian, visited babs in Egypt in 450 BC, leaving us a precious record of cat worship. He wrote that in this place, if you deliberately kill a cat, you will be sentenced to death; For manslaughter, a considerable amount of money should be compensated according to the requirements of the priestess. If the domestic cat dies (mostly due to food poisoning or being bitten by other wild animals), the whole family should shave their eyebrows to express their condolences, otherwise the best god will suffer.
The dead cat will be sent to the temple to be mummified and buried. At the end of 19th century, a cat graveyard was found in Egypt, in which about 300,000 cats were buried. These cats were all painted with spices and mummified, and even there were mice and thread balls for cats to play in the tomb. In addition, in the event of a fire, if the ancient Egyptians saw a cat walking through the fire, they would hold a grand mourning ceremony, because it represented that the cat god was alleviating the disaster for others.
Cat Mummies in Ancient Egypt
Domestic cats in ancient Egypt mainly prevented mice from stealing food. In addition, cats can also fight snakes, thus giving them a noble and mysterious power, which is also in line with the legend of pulling gods and fighting python in Egyptian mythology. In addition to catching mice, domestic cats often go hunting with their owners. In the British Museum, there is a picture of "Cats Hunting" in ancient Egypt.
During the new dynasty, many women who want to have children will also wear amulets painted with the cat god Best, and the number of kittens depicted on the amulets represents the number of children they wish to have. By Ptolemy’s time, Egypt was gradually influenced by Hellenism, and Best, the cat god representing the moon, was also interpreted by the Greeks as a variant of Al themis. When the Romans occupied Egypt, especially the rise of Christianity, this pagan worship gradually disappeared.
"Cats Hunting Map" in British Museum
Cats in Jewish culture
Some people think that the negative Christian view of cats comes from the fact that there is no record of this animal in the Bible. However, on closer examination, this explanation is far-fetched.
Although there are no cats in the Bible, there have been many other big cats, especially lions and leopards. For example, in Genesis, Jacob, the Jewish ancestor, blessed his son Judas and said, "Judas is a lion cub; My son, you come up after hunting food, prostrate yourself like a lion and a lioness. Who dares to disturb you? "
Some people think that cats are not recorded in the Bible because Egyptians worship cat gods, while Jews regard them as idolatry and do not record them. However, other animal gods worshipped by Egyptians are often recorded in the Bible. Some later generations explained that although Jews were imprisoned in Egypt for 400 years, they probably did not know the existence of domestic cats. Because the Egyptians regarded cats as gods, they were not easily contacted by Jews who were slaves. In addition, there were almost no cats in the early Greek and Roman civilization, and they didn’t know about the existence of domestic cats until they conquered Egypt.
Cats catching birds in Roman mosaic paintings
It is worth noting that there is indeed a description of cats in the Talmud. One of them said, "If God had not promulgated the Torah for us, we would have learned humility from cats." (Eruvin, 100b) A 9th-century rabbi’s exegesis book records that cats’ modesty is mainly reflected in the fact that they often cover their faces. Moreover, cats have the habit of burying excrement and cleaning their bodies, which also makes Jews who like cleanliness regard them as virtue teachers in life.
There are also negative records about cats in the Talmud. A rabbi’s student asked him why dogs know their owners, but cats can’t. The rabbi replied that because cats eat mice, their memory declines; The more mice cats eat, the worse their memory. However, in Jewish customs, there is no taboo about cats, especially black cats, in Christianity later.
Chapter "Ode to Domestic and Wild Animals" in Ode to the Universe
Perek Shirah, a Jewish religious reading about the 10th century, depicts various scenes in which creatures praise the creator. Among them, the eulogy sung by cats comes from a famous sentence in the Psalms: "I pursued my enemies and captured them until they were wiped out and never returned." Obviously, the image of cats as hunters is still highly praised in Jewish culture.
In the Middle Ages, Jews living in Gedu also kept cats, mainly to prevent mice from eating the Bible and stealing food. During the Black Death, the existence of domestic cats in Jewish communities also largely resisted the spread of plague. Of course, some studies have pointed out that Jews’ eating habits and living environment may protect them to a greater extent. Because in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, many people at the bottom of western Europe ate rat meat, which also provided more opportunities for fleas who spread plague, while Jews were often spared because of the clean diet law. However, these in turn strengthened the hatred of Jews and cats in Western Europe, believing that it was they who secretly spread the Black Death.
Cats in monasteries and manuscripts
The Christian world was not hostile to cats from the beginning. In medieval monasteries, cats have always existed, and their figures have been preserved through medieval manuscripts. In addition to the collection of animal fables, the image of cats appears in the margins of medieval manuscripts, which is quite entertaining. According to the research of St. isidore, the origin of the Latin name (catus) of cats means "catching". Although this is not the case in etymology, it also shows that in the eyes of medieval people, the main function of cats is to catch mice, and they are endowed with the image of hunters.
Rats have always been the natural enemies of books, and the traces of these small animals have survived for thousands of years through manuscripts.
A manuscript of the Comfort of Philosophy by Boethius bitten by a mouse Corpus Christi College Cambridge, MS 214, Fol. 122r.
The most unacceptable thing for people is that rats will chew the candles in the church and even steal the Eucharist (unleavened bread) placed in the Eucharist niche. This is a great blasphemy! In a collection of animal fables in the mid-13th century, it was described that big cats caught mice that ate the Eucharist.
The mouse steals the Eucharist, the cat catches the mouse, and at the bottom there is a cat who is playing an instrument, Harley MS 4751, F.30V.
In addition to eating manuscripts and stealing the Eucharist from the church, mice also ate the cheese of monks, which was quite expensive food in Europe at that time. In a medieval manuscript about the late 11th century, it depicts a mouse climbing onto the dining table and stealing Hildebert’s cheese. Hildebert holds a stone for killing. At the table, a big cat depicted as a lion is majestically guarding the manuscript copied by its owner. The most interesting thing is that when I carefully observed the manuscript spread out in front of Hildebert, I found that it was actually a curse on the mouse: "The meanest mouse, you often annoy me." Let God destroy you! " （Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram; ut te deus perdat）
Hildebert and the cat and mouse, Prague, capitular library, codex a 21/1, fol.153r.
An Irish monk in the 9th century once wrote a touching poem for his cat. In his works, the kitten’s hunting life is integrated with his own academic exploration. The little white cat in the famous animated film The Secret of Kells comes from this poem called Pangur Bán (excerpt):
Me and my little white cat Pangu,
Engaged in similar affairs.
Its fun is catching mice,
I chased the words all night.
The praise of the world,
Far less than sitting alone with books and pens.
……
How sweet this job is to us,
How fascinated we are with this job.
……
We find our own peace in our work,
I have mine, my cat Pangu has its own, joy.
In our respective arts, we find our own ecstasy,
I have mine, it has its own.
I’m practicing my skills day and night,
Pangu is also perfecting its skills.
My wisdom is growing day and night,
Turn the long night into endless light.
However, not all cats are so unpopular. A 1445 manuscript left a cat paw print, and the owner of the manuscript must have been very upset at that time. However, this is not the most distressing thing. A manuscript written in about 1420 records the curse on cats, because the scribe found that cats peed in the manuscript he copied. Therefore, the scribe had to stop copying on this half page, and explained the reason and the warning to future generations: "There is nothing missing here, but a cat spilled urine on it one night." I’m going to curse the cat that peed on my book here in Fintel one night, and curse other cats because of it. Be careful not to leave the book open where the cat may sneak in. "
A medieval Italian manuscript with cat paw prints.
A page of manuscript destroyed by cat urine, Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. Quarto, 249, Fol. 68R.
In addition, in the depiction of the Middle Ages, cats were often associated with string players, which may be due to the similarity of their beards and strings. For example, in an early 14th century Book of Hours, several kittens were elegantly playing three-stringed instruments.
Cats playing musical instruments 1
Cats who play musical instruments 2
