Medieval Monks, Marginalia, and Cats

Your job is boring and repetitive. You ache to express yourself. The only way you can do this is to wait until your supervisor isn’t looking – and doodle on your notepad. Well, this is equivalent to the medieval monks who laboriously copied out manuscripts by hand – and added small drawings of their own invention in the margins.

Cats will be cats
as in this marginalia illustration

Perhaps the cats that inspired these drawings in the margins (or “marginalia”), also kept the monks company. As the monks drew, so these felines worked alongside, keeping down the rats and mice. This was big problem for the monks because the vermin were attracted to the paper which they ate – destroying all that painstaking work. But the vermin were also bold, and climbed the desks where the scribes worked and stole their food.

“Most wretched mouse, often you provoke me to anger. May God destroy you!”

[Caption from a humours illustration of a Hildebert, a 12^th century scribe, as he tries to catch the mouse that steals his cheese.]

Another cat doing what cats do.
Clearly this scribe was bored

But let’s face it many medieval monks did match the psychological profile of a typical cat lover as creative and intelligent. However, one writer was left his cat’s autograph when the cat stepped in ink and walked across the manuscript.

A cat with wearing what appears to be a
prototype jet pack

Perhaps another scribe who was perhaps less pleased by his cat’s “signature” was the one who returned in the morning to find a page soaked in cat wee. He was forced to leave that page blank with a message to the effect that nothing was missing but he’d learnt a lesson not to leave books out at night.

Medieval paw prints captured in ink

We know at least one Irish monk welcomed his feline companion. He even gave the cat a name, Pangur Ban, and wrote a rather sweet poem about him:

I and Pangur Ban my cat

Tis a like task we are at:

Hunting mice is his delightful

Hunting words I sit all night

This scribe was not a cat lover by all accounts

What is interesting is that whilst cats were valued as mousers, they were also feared as devilish creatures. Indeed, cats were widely used elsewhere in medieval carvings and paintings, to tell ordinary folk cautionary tales of good and evil – where the cat was portrayed as a cunning trickster. Hmmm, I suppose cats have at least got their own back in the 21^st century, with life on their terms. 

Widget- very much a 21st century cat

Pangur Ban, a Medieval Cat Poem - by Guest, Kim Rendfeld

I'm delighted to welcome author of historical fiction, Kim Rendfeld, to Fall in Love with History. Kim posts on a subject very close to my heart - cats. I love learning about how cats were depicted in early centuries,  and the delightful poem about an Irish monk's cat is a new treasure. So without further ado, over to Kim.

G x

The delightfully titled "Katzen und Maeuses"

When you read about early medieval times, you expect war and brutal justice, not a charming poem about a cat.

 But such a thing does exists, and it was a pleasant surprise in my research for my novels. I stumbled across “Pangur Ban” in Pierre Riche’s Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne. Written in the margins of a manuscript found in a monastery in today’s Austria, this ninth-century piece is about a cat named Pangur Ban, written by an Irish monk. In the poem, the author compares his hunt for knowledge to the cat’s hunt for mice and describes the satisfaction both get from their arts. (A kind soul has posted two translations of the poem at http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems/pangur.ban.html .)

The poem reveals the affection the poet has for his pet, so much that he’s given his animal a name, and he refers to his cat as “he” rather than “it.” “Pangur Ban” is also relevant to those of us who write and seek knowledge today. Do we not rejoice when we capture that elusive piece of information we’ve been stalking? Are we not so proud we want to meow and drop the prey at our companion’s feet, I mean show it off?

This delightful poem shows a universality in affection for our pets and the pure joy of learning. In many ways, we’ve not changed much from our ancestors, but in this case, it’s a good thing.

 

Kim Rendfeld

Kim Rendfeld is a cat lover and the author of The Cross and the Dragon (2012, Fireship Press), a tale of love amid wars and blood feuds, and The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar (August 28, 2014, Fireship Press), a story of the lengths a mother will go to protect her children. To read the first chapters of either novel or learn more about Kim, visit kimrendfeld.com. You’re also welcome to visit her blog Outtakes of a Historical Novelist at kimrendfeld.wordpress.com, like her on Facebook at facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld, or follow her on Twitter at @kimrendfeld, or contact her at kim [at] kimrendfeld [dot] com.

Thank you, Kim! 

OK, this isn't strictly relevant but I'm going to post it anyway! A quick sketch by my son of Widget, my writer's cat. Isn't she gorgeous? Look at that smile. 

Widget - biro on paper :-)