← Back to the front page

Meow – The History of Cat Domestication, and How Our Furry Friends Domesticated Themselves

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2025 17 min

7. Cats in Europe: From Companions to Evil Creatures

Medieval illustration of a man and dogs attacking a treed cat. World History Encyclopedia

The Romans admired Egyptian culture, and brought cats into their households across the empire. As the Roman Empire expanded, cats spread throughout Europe and into the British Isles. After Rome fell, though, the Middle Ages became a dark period for cats in Europe. As Christianity spread, pagan symbols and deities, including cats, were recast as demonic. Cats, especially black ones, became associated with witchcraft and the devil. That shift had devastating consequences.

During the Black Death in the fourteenth century, cats were often blamed as harbingers of evil. Ironically, the mass killing of cats may have worsened the plague, as it reduced the natural population control of rats, the plague’s true carriers. By the seventeenth century, cats began to regain favor, especially in France and England. They were appreciated again for their elegance, and usefulness in pest control. Artists, writers, and thinkers began to document and admire feline behavior.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.