We’ve all heard of how revered cats were to the Ancient Egyptians. They were the embodiment of one of their deities, Bastet, the goddess of pregnancy and fertility. In fact, cats were so beloved that when the Persians came knocking in 525 BC with depictions of cats on their shields, Egyptian soldiers dared not toss their spears at the invading army out of fear of ruining an image of a cat.
But other cultures felt differently about cats. Fast-forward to the 13th century to the time of Pope Gregory IX, and you’ll find stories of how the Catholic Church viewed these four-legged beasts were considered the personification of Satan himself. Some claim that the extermination of cats in Europe would bring about the Black Plague and ravage about one-third of Europe’s population.
But how historically accurate is the belief that the Pope had an undying hatred for cats?
The Story of Pope Gregory IX’s Hatred toward Cats
The story starts with cats being imported to Europe by Romans who had domesticated them for chasing and killing rats. Since vermin led to the destruction of crops, they were more than happy to let cats hunt them down while offering them shelter and scraps.
However, the human-feline relationship had deteriorated in the early-13th century when Pope Gregory IX issued the Vox in Rama, which supposedly declared cats as the embodiment and instruments of the Devil. This decree created disgust in cats, particularly black cats.
Drawing inspiration from the Vox in Rama, people across Europe began hunting and killing cats whenever possible. Logically, with the reduced population of vermin-killing felines, the population of disease-carrying rodents skyrocketed. Without cats to keep them in check, rats had free reign of Europe, leading to the accelerated spreading of the Black Plague.