As the Middle Ages wore on, general attitudes about cats became increasingly negative. Although they continued to be kept as mousers and pets, they were associated with heresy, witchcraft, and the devil. Irina Metzler argues this was partly because even though they were domesticated, they wouldn’t obey their humans. In the early 15th century, Edward, Duke of York wrote that “one thing I dare well say that if any beast has the devil’s spirit in him without doubt it is the cat, both wild and tame.”
Source(s): Image is from the Peterborough Bestiary, 1300-1310, Cambridge Corpus Christi College, MS 53, fol 197v. Second image is my cat Hugo, who neither knows nor cares about such pronouncements. Also see medievalists.net, “Why Cats Were Hated in Medieval Europe”.
