Apr 17 2012 17:16 7 notes

Black Death and…. Black Cats? No, all cats.

The Black Death, AKA Black Plague of Bubonic Plague. Notorious European pandemic, killed millions. Quite a devastating time in history, wiping out about 60% of Europe’s population.

But what could have possibly helped a quite a bit with the horrors of dead people everywhere? Cats. And of course there goes the Catholic Church, pissed off about something else. Cats. 

When the plague began, Christians felt abandoned by God. But they needed someone to blame for this. Satan. Superstition and bad luck resulted in feline damnation. 

Cats were said to have been associated with witchcraft, Satanism, and Satan himself, the Church ordered that all cats be killed immediatly as soon as they were seen. So they were pretty much the scapegoats of the time. 

Cats could have actually helped this problem, considering they were great at guarding food supply etc from rats. It was rats that carried the problem. And the problem was the deadly germ on the fleas they carried. 

Cat population went way down, but rat population went way up. Haha great, nice job Pope Gregory  IX. 

They were hunted for about 300 years, and this horrible act ended when the post-Plague Enlightenment came about.