Paws, Pee and Mice: Cats among Medieval Manuscripts

[rug]

Posted on February 22, 2013 by medievalfragments

Today’s blog is a guest post from Thijs Porck, a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Culture, Universiteit Leiden.

This week Erik’s tweet on cat-paws in a fifteenth-century manuscript went viral across facebook and the twittersphere when it was shared and commented on by thousands. Follow @erik_kwakkel today for more animal-themed tweets #manuscriptzoo

Everyone who has ever owned a cat will be familiar with their unmannerly feline habit of walking across your keyboard while you are typing. One of the manuscript pictures tweeted by @erik_kwakkel revealed that this is nothing new.



Although the medieval owner of this manuscript may have been quite annoyed with these paw marks on his otherwise neat manuscript, another fifteenth-century manuscript reveals that he got off lucky. A Deventer scribe, writing around 1420, found his manuscript ruined by a urine stain left there by a cat the night before. He was forced to leave the rest of the page empty, drew a picture of a cat and cursed the creature with the following words:

“Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt.”

(Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others (other cats) too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.)

Cursed be this cat for peeing over my book! (© Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. quarto, 249, fol. 68r)

https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/paws-pee-and-mice-cats-among-medieval-manuscripts/

[democratisphere]

1. Let me count the ways and days.

[tblue37]

2. One of my cats doesn't just sit or lie on what I am writing. When I grade papers,

she thinks that I am moving my pen to play with her, so she sneaks up while I am totally focused on my work and slaps the pen right out of my hand. I got tired of repeatedly having to get up to collect my pen, especially since she often sends it flying some distance, so now I keep several extras nearby to allow me to continue working for a while--at least until they are all sent flying or she gets bored with the game.

I could shut her away while working, but it is so cute that she gets away with it. It does slow down my progress, though.

[Ligyron]

3. Tie a string to it?

I tried that but then it got worse for me..

[tblue37]

4. A string would get my other 3 cats involved. nt

[CrispyQ]

5. I blame all tyupos on my cat.

[Dale Neiburg]

6. My wife and I had one of the early pre-Windows PCs.

Our first cat was so cooperative that before walking across the keyboard when we were using PC-Write, she would reach out with her paw and hit F1-F2 (the command to save and exit) before walking across the keyboard. Alas, none of the later ones has been so polite....

[rug]

7. How thoughtful!

[pansypoo53219]

8. i have a wall to protect my f keys. basil's fault. worse when i had a blue i-mac.

cats loved stealing the heat. i had a tail or paws over my screen 1/2 the time. they can no longer perch on the screen.

CNN.com years ago or NPR had a thing about ancient doodles left in manuscripts + they were so awesome.

[Wolf Frankula]

9. Your Cat Peed on your Book

You should have changed the litter box!

Wolf