In middle school we learn about the Bubonic Plague—the skin-rotting disease that killed more than 25 million people throughout Europe between 1347 and 1352. We learn that the reason for the “Black Death’s” rapid spread is due to two factors: people’s belief that bathing would exacerbate contamination and rats. While this is not inaccurate, a third and lesser-known factor for the epidemic’s tyranny exists: the persecution of cats.
Four hundred years before the plague weeded out a third of Europe’s population, the Welsh sensibly placed value on cats, recognizing their ability to protect human food stores. Welsh ruler Hywel the Good established laws that imposed strict penalties for harming or stealing cats, mandating the following for anyone who did
However, The Middle Ages and adoption of English law brought about a change of opinion of the feline. Certain religious leaders had been casting aspersions on cats for quite some time before the Black Plague hit. Cats were not subservient and tended to be noisy at night, which caused them to be viewed with suspicion. They began to be viewed to have magical powers; cats began to be associated with the devil and their owners with witches. Pope Gregory IX (cousin of Pope Innocent III) launched a massive war on cats and went so far as to label the cat a “diabolical creature” in 1232. In his bull Vox in Rama, Gregory’s condemnation of worshiping Satin the form of a black cat led to a massacre of felines across Europe. In a manic manner, millions of cats were put to death and even sometimes burnt with their owners. With paranoid fervor, Europe by and large wiped out its domestic cat population.
Europe’s rat population, now unchecked by their natural predators, each carried hundred of tiny fleas, which were the true transmitters of the bubonic plague germ. Areas with more rats therefore had more fleas and thus a higher instance of plague outbreak. Cats were the first line of defense against the plague, and their absence—due to an erroneous and pseudo-canonical belief— was perhaps more detrimental than people’s ignorance of the nature of bacteria.
Ironically, when the deadly plague first arrived, cats became a scapegoat. The belief spread that God had abandoned humans; thus, religious leaders needed a way to curb the people’s loss of faith that threatened the Church’s profit and authority—they needed to blame Satan for the plague. As physical evidence of Satan’s presence, cats were singled out as agents of the devil, who were ‘vessels of evil,’ carrying death and sickness with them wherever they went. Poor kitty.