[HN Gopher] What medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancesto...
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       What medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors' pets
        
       Author : rntn
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2022-12-25 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
        
       | dav_Oz wrote:
       | > _Their presumed links with paganism and witchcraft meant they
       | were often treated with suspicion._
       | 
       | Unfortunately, one of the most cruel forms [0] of medieval
       | "suspicion"-treating. I will spare the details, here.
       | 
       | The article is quite shallow, the links are a much better read
       | e.g.:
       | 
       | > _One European pilgrim who traveled to the Middle East even
       | noted that among the differences between Muslims and Christians
       | was that "They like cats, while we like dogs._ [1]
       | 
       | Or those wiki-articles [2],[3].
       | 
       | [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat-burning
       | 
       | [1]https://www.medievalists.net/2013/10/why-cats-were-hated-
       | in-...
       | 
       | [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_dogs
       | 
       | [3]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_depictions_of_cats
        
       | trabant00 wrote:
       | I don't get the point about cats and dogs being status symbols.
       | I'm sure lower class had dogs for security and cats for rodents.
       | Geting a portrait with a pet is a status symbol because of the
       | portait part, not the pet.
        
         | ljf wrote:
         | Currently listening to a series of lectures on medieval
         | Britain, and very generally most working people were close to
         | starvation - they couldn't even afford to keep farm animals as
         | the cost to feed them was so high as the field practices at the
         | time were so poor. So while stray dogs and cats may have
         | attached themselves to households or villages, I seriously
         | doubt many except the richer families would have been able to
         | spare the food to feed them and treat them as real pets. And
         | unlikely they would look like the clean attractive pets in the
         | illustrations, if you've met many stray Street cats and dogs.
         | 
         | https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/09/04/famine-and-deart...
        
       | derriz wrote:
       | I'm a bit disappointed which the shallowness of the article. And
       | now mention of the (relatively well known?) cat poem, Pangur Ban?
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangur_Ban
        
         | cyocum wrote:
         | If you are interested in cats in Early Medieval Ireland, I
         | would recommend reading "Catslechta and other medieval legal
         | material relating to cats" by Kevin Murray in Celtica 25, pp.
         | 143-159.
        
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       (page generated 2022-12-25 23:00 UTC)