Its funny thinking about cats as the symbol of evil. Lets see if the math adds up. Cats were later blamed for the Black Death (1346-1352), though rats were actually the culprit. Poor cats though. These were, however, local affairs and dont serve as proof of the kind of massive cat recall modern folks have inferred from Pope Gregory IXs bull. Check out France, rats on the street, brave-pigeons without flight reflex, but no cats. 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. April 1st was originally celebrated as the New Year day, until in 1582 Pope . Wierd Tales, Vol 36. Like most diseases, were hard pressed to find thebad guy. The Bubonic plague was carried not by rats themselves but their fleas; fleas which could just as easily transfer to dogs- and cats. Gregory immediately recognizing Conrad as a useful tool in his war against religious dissent. Indeed the belief that the torture or killing of cats could break spells continued across northern Europe. In the 13th century, an inquisitor described, in a report to the pope, a Satanic cult in Germany that used cats as part of a ritual, and the pope's response quoted some of his information (which has been described as medieval propaganda by some). We know they had terrier like dogs in Medieval Europe and that they were used as ratters. Gregory lived from 1145 to 1241, AD. In the fourth century, a Christian monk named Evagrius Ponticus wrote down what's known as the "eight evil thoughts": gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sloth, sadness . 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. If you survived, you lost many people you loved. Theres one thing you havent considered. some particularly superstitious believers seized on the idea that the black cats were servants of Satan. 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. 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. What effects did it have? Finally, even if cat numbers were vastly reduced, they were not wiped out. What he did caused the persecution of domestic and stray cats for 500 years. So why not witches? According toSmithsonian Magazine, the Nazca geoglyphs may have been used for astrological, calendrical purposes as well as religious rituals to encourage rainfall and fertility. 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 . While I dont have any cats my allergist says owning a cat for me is worse for my lungs than chain smoking Ive long revered cats. The author provides citations for his claims. They were pure evil seeking nothing but power & control of the population. Besides, it mutated into septicemic and pneumonic forms, thus spreading even faster. Retrieved from https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/06/ravens-memory-unfair-trade/. So, rather than being a document banning cats from Europe, it was a letter sent to a city warning them about a cult. 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. By Gregorys decree, there was a target on the head of every black cat. But, was it because of cats andrats? The Black Death came in 1347. That was when Ugolino was over 80 years old. The novice then feasted with the rest of the congregation, after which they assembled to pay homage to a black cat which emerged from a kind of statue which normally stands in the place where these meetings are held., The whole coven was required to kiss the cats behind, and once they had done this, a wild sexual orgy occurred. We may not be that much superior to that time frame, but we have learned a thing or two since then, I hope. I soon realized thatpublic affairs combined the best of both worlds of journalism and television talk shows I get to learn interesting and unusual things about people who worked with me, I then get to tell their story. you suck; F-; see edict ex cathadre by a subsequent POPE reversing greggy 9s cat condemnation- also, Y-Perstis fleas only and I mean ONLY like rats; why? (2017, June 6). The proverbial compendium of collective human knowledge at that point was certainly shorter and harder to access than it is now, but people back then still used their brains. 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, In the decree, he declared that Satan is half cat and claimed that there were . One small fact you havent taken account of here. Sweet Home Alabama Lyrics: What Does Muscle Shoals Has Got the Swampers Mean? However, history shows that the Black Death, which ravaged Europe in the mid 1300s, was actually caused by rats and the fleas on them. For one, rate outnumber cats by a huge margin, like everywhere, and always have. 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. Conrad had initially been involved in the persecution of the Cathars and enjoyed significant successes during the Albigensian crusade of 1209 -1229. 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. If the Black Death was airborne, then rats had nothing to do with it, exonerating Gregory. Want more crazy cat facts? Cats that I know are devoted to their humans my dog runs off as soon as the door is open, my cat sits on my knee, engages in conversation with me, stays closeby our home, and kills lots of mice, bringing them to me rather than eating them cats keep down rodent populations for farmers and humans who store and eat grain etc definitely as handy as dogs. 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. In Belgium, an entire festival, Kattenstoet, is dedicated to throwing cats from buildings and burning them in the streets. 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. Reply . Interestingly enough, Halloween originally a pagan celebration also has Catholic roots in the form of All Hallows Eve, that is the Vigil of All Saints Day, when Catholics remember those who have gone before them to enter their heavenly home. The Church had already accused the Waldenses of worshipping the devil in the form of a cat. Welcome to BELIEVE.art, home of Revolutionary Artist & Warrior-Poet, Chairman Meow. In Ypres in Belgium, it was the custom to hurl cats from the belfry of local churches and then set them on fire during the festival of cats or Kattenstoet. (Accessed June 1, 2018). Cats were later blamed for the Black Death (13461352), though rats were actually the culprit. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Museum Hack leads small group, VIP museum tours that are fun, fast-paced and surprisingly cool. The fleas just love cat blood so much more than ours. Did Pope Gregorys comfort with the law cause him tooverstephis station as the pope? The popes were all hypocrytical, bastards. For some reason, we find the idea that our ancestors were dumb rather appealing. 2022 History of Yesterday | All Rights Reserved. In the years ahead, feline-kind all across Europe saw their status slammed from a sacred and protected animal to a false idol. The PBS documentary pointed out that cats dont have the musculature in their faces to reproduce human-like facial expressions the way dogs do, which is probably the main reason people think they are aloof and why they think dogs are so much more companionable (cause we love things that are more like us). For example, 79 medieval cats were mysteriously slain in Cambridge, England, by the townsfolk in the 13th century. Many superstitions, including fear of black cats, continue to this day. The cat thing is a footnote in his story. Fewer cats, more rats, more fleas, and more plague. They fly in the face of the Christian idea of God putting the natural world and its creatures here for humanitys benefit. Purina, the multinational firm known for making cat chow, notes that, Egyptians have had a long love affair with cats. Just want to add that I like pretty much all animals, even dogs, but I am a cat person. Wierd Tales, Vol 36. One can love animals, the Catechism says. Was considering writing a song about the folly of feline flaying, now Im not so sure. But the cars we have for pets are not naturally in the wild for thousands of years. But feline-human relations deteriorated sometime in the early 1230s (CE) when Pope Gregory IX issued a papal bull called Vox in Rama. Evil cradles in the Austin Powers franchise. Wikimedia Commons. So a thing about the inquisition was that they would torture people to get confessions and such because that's a good way to make people say what you want to hear. On January 23, 1229, he sent messages to Riga, Lubeck, Sweden, to Gotland with an appeal to begin . Thanks for writing this! Elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of cat killings passed into folk practices. The Bull arose in response to rumors of satanic cults in Germany by the areas grand inquisitor, Conrad of Marburg. 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. Retrieved from https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/02/06/in-the-middle-ages-devil-fearing-christians-killed-cats-which-carried-the-unintended-consequence-of-increasing-the-rat-population-and-the-spread-of-the-black-death/, Horrox, Rosemary. His pontificate was notable for the papacy's attempts to intervene in the quarrels between Emperor Louis the Pious and his sons. Though, really, they were dealing with a cat infestation and decided to make it an excuse to drink. If cats were evil, it made sense that they were responsible for all the death and . But, despite all the people who make their livings as cat psychologists, cats will just be cats. You cant even accept that cats may have offered some protection from the plague. Name is important in the papacy as it is seen as a signal of how their reign is envisioned. Ugolino chooses the name Gregory IX, as he assumed the office at the monastery of St. Gregory ad Septem Solia and fully embracing the papal supremacy policy following the footsteps of Gregory VII and Innocent III. The Remains of Dead US Presidents Will Be Sent Into Space, The Man Who Surgically Brought Back Unicorns. why did pope gregory think that cats were evil? Weve discovered that the two diseases were one and the same, spread by contact, not the air. https://historycollection.co/thou-shalt-not-suffer-a-cat-to-live-why-pope-gregory-ixs-vox-in-rama-implicated-cats-in-devil-worship/3/, Of course, theres also the wee tiny fact that the paranoia about witchcraft didnt really start to get into full swing until the 16th and 17th century, and that included black cats. Both, however, rendered the Catholic Church redundant. The people of the time may have felt that this was the end of days, but the wake of the plague was nothing but an opportunity for survivors. While the fact is pretty obscure on whether the papal bull is directly influenced by Konrad, he is known as a zeal that is set on to burn every last heretic. Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Vox-in-Rama-authentic-What-effects-did-it-have, Sheldon, Natasha. Neither does rogue operative, Jason Bourne. Classical Cats: The Rise and fall of the Sacred Cat, Donald W Engels, Psychology Press. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death, Georgievska, Marija. The cat had obtained a darker connotation through its association with Galinthias, who became a servant of Hecate, a Greek goddess of the underworld after she was turned into a cat by the goddess Hera. 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. 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. Pope Gregory IX How did this come about? Interesly, June 7, 2016, The spooky history of how cats bewitched us, Abigail Tucker, The Washington Post, October 31, 2016, The History of the cat in the Middle Ages (Part 2): The Black cat as the devil in Christian sects, L A Vocelle, The Great Cat: The Cat in History, Art, and Literature. 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. Gregory believed him. Enter the ancestors of Garfield the Cat. Pope Gregory IV (Latin: Gregorius IV; died 25 January 844) was the bishop of Rome and ruler of the Papal States from October 827 to his death. Ugolino di Conti was born around 11451170 in Anagni, Rome. Not a cat person? Information junkie with high probability of being a real-life Ted Mosby. 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. Wages rose fast in the absence of labor. Summary. But some of their adversaries do. Even those among us who love cats (not me, I like dogs) freely admit that they are mercurial and probably evil animals that deal death for fun and would eat our eyes if they got the chance. 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. This demonization led to the widespread, violent persecution of black cats in particular. Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges pilgrims during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Nov. 4, 2009. My mum always said the best way to get rid of a flea infestation was to let a cat walk through your house. Gregory IX. Encyclopedia of World Biography, Encyclopedia.com. I do support single mothers though, especially those willing to give me 2 for 1 lapdance specials, but I digress. You literally cannot even be bothered to recall the NAMES of the people youre talking about. One of these was the sparrow! Its believed by some that the plague spread, at least in part,via rats. Elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of cat killings passed into folk practices. But this means that a papal bull that didnt tell people to wipe out cats and was only sent to Mainz somehow influenced the majority of people throughout Europe to kill off all their cats, and to stick to it over the course of the next 115 years. I am in France since 3 years and I would see the amount of cats I saw here during that time, maybe in a day or two in Turkey. He tended to treat all those accused as guilty until proven innocent and threatened all those who would not confess with the flames. A witch and her cat. He believed that cats were evil creatures because they were related to Satan. Cat burning and other forms of cat hating have survived the centuries since. Retrieved from https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cats-and-the-Black-Plague, Encyclopaedia Britannica. This cruel practice continued until 1817 although the Kattenstoet continues to this day- involving stuffed cats instead. 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. It also saw the breakup of the Carolingian Empire in 843. Based on the Vox in Rama translation there is no exact phrase that urges Konrad or other inquisitors to go on a cathunt all across Europe. (2007, September 1). It also provided a remarkably full account of their Satanic rite. Cats are not assholes, as this writer and many dog lovers like to repeat endlessly (and its SO tiresome to listen). For Conrad in his quest for heretics around Mainz and Hildesheim claimed to have uncovered a Luciferian cult. (2016, May 4). 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. In an era when unknown phenomena seemed like they could only be explained by powerful deities, it seemed only natural to the Egyptians to worship kitty cats. Thanks, 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. To learn more about me and my digital travels, visit myTwitterpage. Pope Gregory IX (1147-1241) was probably the world's worst cat hater or at least he did the most damage to cats. Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Vox-in-Rama-authentic-What-effects-did-it-have, PetMD. We have detected that you are using extensions to block ads. Between 1347 and 1352, some 100 million people died of the Plague, representing almost half of Europes population. 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. Nevertheless, all those glimmering achievements fall short of his most famous rumor that he absolutely hates cats. The Black Death or Black Plague was the original zombie apocalypse. Granted, Im sure it was easier to get into back then, but thats right in the Medieval period. After years of consultation and research, Pope Gregory XIII signed a papal bull in February 1582 promulgating the reformed calendar that came to be known as the Gregorian calendar. Homeless Cats Recruited to Fight Rising Tide of Rats, Erika Engelhaupt National Geographical, September 29, 2017. Chairman Meow Says: Iz so awful that such a time occurred in our history. The reforms were based on the suggestions of the Italian scientist Luigi Lilio, with some modifications by the Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius. Many believed this was the end of the human race, and who could blame them? 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. no- blood dives; you are 100% wrong, irrational clearly an agnostic who mocks then defends his false god, the pope- also, review another diatribe from papal high tower urging cats killed-clearly minions of satan, word cat not in catholic bible problem is, what did david kill as shepherd attacking his sheep? Im on the fence about getting an electronic cat that responds to touch (i.e., purring, meowing and flicking its robotic tail) but I can see why Egyptians of antiquity fell in love with cats. Although the explicit heretic activities mentioned within the Vox in Rama do mention something about our feline friend, this doesn't mean that Gregory IX endorse cathunt. You know, small-town sh*t.9. That, or he was a true believer, or both. cats were only interested in our rat infested granaries. Actually, the murder of cats in Europe continued for hundreds of years, and another Plague swept through Europe again in the 17th Century. I AGREE. 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. CATS ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE & ALWAYS WILL BE BETTER THAN HUMANS. But in the final analysis cats just arent dogs. Before the 13th century, many societies, . 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? THE RELIGIOUS SECTOR ARE OUT OF THEIR MINDS W/ THEIR POOR REASONING OF ENCOURAGING BIG FAMILIES. Wikimedia Commons. First, consider the dates: Pope Gregory IXs papal bull was issued between 1232 and 1234. On June 13, 1233, Gregory issued the Vox in Rama, an official papal decree declaring that Satan was half-cat and sometimes took the form of a cat during Satanic masses. Locusts and every other kind because the sparrow not only ate grain but also insects the great 3 year famin followed and the official Chinese records showed 15 million people died of starvation but later studies done by experts from outside of China say the official numbers are fudged badly in an optimistic attempt to cover the true death toll of around 45 million plus some even say as high as 70 million!! 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. Others are less sure. At first glance, these rites, with their orgies and obscenities seem to be deliberately far-fetched. Indeed the belief that the torture or killing of cats could break spells continued across northern Europe. People living during this time lived in constant fear of death. 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. Theres a little bit about a cat in the third paragraph but what Gregory is really talking about here is a ritual carried out by a Satanic sect, as reported by an overzealous inquisitor named Conrad von Marburg. These new, heretical beliefs varied. Good read, thanks! The following rites of this [sect] are carried out: When any novice is to be received among them and enters the sect of the damned for the first time, the shape of a certain frog [or toad] appears to him. The black plague ravaged countless European cities around a century after the demise of Pope Gregory IX. If anything, the cathunt is Konrads interpretation of the papal bull. designs at:Threadless.com and Zazzle, Why Cats Were (Wrongly) Blamed for the Black Plague in Europe. We accept this storythat we humans once crossed cats and it resulted in one in three of us dyingbecause it just feels rignt. ANIMALS ARE BECOMING EXTINCT BECAUSE OF THE GREAT AMOUNT OF NEEDLESS BABIES BEING BORN. Also, in 1182, to aid the churchs vendetta against the Cathars, the French theologian Alain de Lille falsely claimed that the sect took its name from the cat instead of the real source, the Greek katharoi or pious ones. Cats absolutely devastate wildlife when out in nature, killing millions of birds and having been responsible for extinction of species.

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