by L A Vocelle
†† In the original version she is turned into a cat. (Click here to go back)
††† The worshippers often offered her garlic and the cat, too, would later be associated with vampires especially in Japan. (Click here to go back)
† Domitian was well known for his persecution of Christians. (Click here to go back)
† An oil or wine jar. (Click here to go back)
† The cat has now replaced the ferret and weasel in the earlier Latin versions of the fables. (Click here to go back)
† The child could be a boy, as the name has been eroded over time. (Click here to go back)
† Gato-Spanish, Katze-German, Katt-Swedish, Kot-Polish, Koshka-Russian, Kedi-Turkish, Qotta-Arabic (Click here to go back)
† Pusag-Erse, Pus-Saxon, Puis-Gaelic, Pus-Irish, Pusei-Tamil, Pasha-Afghan, Pushak-Persian, Pus-Danish, Poes-Dutch, Piso-Albanian, and Pisica-Romanian just to name a few. (Click here to go back)
† Some sources say that he had a vision on the day of the battle. (Click here to go back)
† Paganism and later witchcraft (Click here to go back)
† Prior to St. Patrick’s arrival in Ireland, cats were worshipped in a cave in Clough and Knowth (Graves, 1966, p. 221). (Click here to go back)
† The emblem of the Burgundians was the wildcat and Clothilde of Burgundy, Clovis’ wife, used an emblem that pictured a sable cat killing a rat on a gold background (Oldfield, 2003, p. 231). (Click here to go back)
† Pagan originally meant country dweller. (Click here to go back)
† A supporter of asceticism, St. Jerome did not think highly of women. (Grössinger, 1997, p. 1). (Click here to go back)
† Pangur is a traditional Irish name, while Ban means white. (Click here to go back)
† [20]Their faces are blacked through the smoke that cometh out of the temple.[21] Upon their bodies and heads sit bats, swallows, and birds, and the cats also.[22] By this ye may know that they are no gods: therefore fear them not. Letter from Jeremiah, Book of Baruch, Chapter 6. (Click here to go back)
† In Islam, a traditional account of things said or done by the Prophet Mohammed or his companions. (Click here to go back)
†† The ritual of washing before prayers in Islam. (Click here to go back)
† 9th century Persian Zoroastrian religious judgments. (Click here to go back)
† Meaning eater of mice. (Click here to go back)
† Wazir or vizier is a high ranking minister or advisor. (Click here to go back)
† Again the cat is associated with the number 9. (Click here to go back)
† Up until the 15th century the word synagogue was used to describe a meeting of witches. (Click here to go back)
†The plague originated in Asia where the Mongols purposely infected the Genoese by throwing diseased bodies over the ramparts during a siege at Caffa on the Black Sea (Bishop, 2001). (Click here to go back)
†† There were only 400 hospitals in all of England during the Middle Ages (Bishop, 2001). (Click here to go back)
† Small ledges on the back of the fold up chairs that afforded those who had to stand some comfort. (Click here to go back)
†† The cat’s association with the violin or fiddle goes back to the ancient statues of Bastet who was often depicted holding a sistrum, which resembled a violin or fiddle (Engels, 2001, p. 42). (Click here to go back)
†Isidore of Seville wrote an encyclopedia of the Dark Ages wherein he describes the cat, “Musio is so called because it is a foe of mice (muribus)...common people call it (catus) because it catches mice. Others say, because it sees (catat). For it has such sharp sight that it overcomes the darkness of the night by the brightness of its eyes” (Brehaut, 1912, p. 148). (Click here to go back)
† A Medieval stringed instrument with a pear shaped body resembling a violin. (Click here to go back)
† Alain de Lille associated the cat with the Cathars and claimed they were heretics. (Click here to go back)
† Laura was Petrarch’s muse. (Click here to go back)
† Hans Baldung Gruen’s (1484-1545) ink etchings portray women as either a “Madonna or whore” representing either good or evil. Cats are a symbol of the beast within women (Waddell, 2003, pp. 85-88). (Click here to go back)
† The same fate was experienced by the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. (Click here to go back)
† Stories of women giving birth to monsters were quite common in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries (Paré & Pallister, 1995). (Click here to go back)
† A test initially used by James I to discern whether or not a person was a witch. The accused was lowered into a body of water and if she floated that meant she had not been baptized and was a witch. If she sank, she was cleared of witchcraft and of course ironically died from drowning. (Click here to go back)
† Note that the life span of a cat is about 18 years. (Click here to go back)
†† It is interesting to note here that both hares and cats were called ‘puss’ until the 18th century. (Click here to go back)
† Scotland repealed its witchcraft act in 1735. (Click here to go back)
† It was in the 15th century that French words such as la chatte, le chat, le mine and even the English pussy cat started to be used as slang terms for female genitalia. A proverb of the time states, “He who takes good care of cats will have a pretty wife” (Brenner, 1999). (Click here to go back)
† It is interesting to note that the ‘cake’ can also be a reference to a cathouse or prostitution since the cat is referred to as ‘her’ (Patterson, 1993, p. 146). (Click here to go back)
† Gib is a reference to an old tom cat, derived from a contraction of the name Gilbert. (Click here to go back)
† Shakespeare took the name of Grimalkin from Baldwin (Ringler, 1979). (Click here to go back)
† A young hare (Click here to go back)
† Nest shitter (Click here to go back)
† Newton was, unsurprisingly, a cat lover and had a cat when he was at Cambridge named CC whom he fed off his dinner tray, (Westfall, 1980 p. 103-104), and it was perhaps for this cat that he invented the first cat flap in 1700. In addition, during this time, a constellation named, “Felis” appeared in an atlas by J. E. Bode (Engels, 2001, p. 171). (Click here to go back)
† Oddly enough he had himself mummified and sits in a cabinet at the University of London. No one knows where his cat is, or if it was in fact mummified too. (Click here to go back)
†† A later edition would be entitled Histoire des Chats. (Click here to go back)
† A reference to the cat being a goddess in ancient Egypt. . (Click here to go back)
† The father of the Graham children was the apothecary to the King. (Click here to go back)
† ‘Blue’ because most of the portraits were painted in blue and white colors. (Click here to go back)
† Many paintings of girls and cats were created during the 19th century supporting this thesis. (Click here to go back)
† While the piece is typically attributed to Gioachino Rossini, it was not actually written by him, but is instead a compilation written in 1825 that borrows from his 1816 opera, Otello. The English composer Robert Lucas de Pearsall most probably compiled the piece, and, for this purpose, used the pseudonym “G. Berthold” (Woodstra, Chris. All Music Guide to Classical Music, 2005, p. 1126). (Click here to go back)
† The letter opener is on display at the New York Public Library in the Berg Collection of English and American Literature. (Click here to go back)
† Guy de Maupassant, On Cats, 1886 (Click here to go back)
† He later changed his name to Leonard. (Click here to go back)
† Orangey, who also starred in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, won a PATSY award (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) for both his performances. Orangey has so far been the only cat to win the award twice. (Click here to go back)
† Syn Cat, the cat actor, won a PATSY award for his performance.
(Click here to go back)
† Tonto also won a PATSY award for his performance. (Click here to go back)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.A. Vocelle has a Master’s of Education and teaching English from George Washington University, Washington, D.C., as well as undergraduate degrees in history and political science. She is the creator and founder of the website The Great Cat, www.thegreatcat.org, and a member of the Cat Writers’ Association. She has published several books: 7 Women Artists and their Cat Subjects (2013), Ancient Egyptian Cats: A Coloring Book for Adults and Children (2015) and Medieval Cats Coloring Book for Cat Lovers (2016). Her free time is devoted to serving the wishes of her four rescue cats.
ONE LAST THING...
If you enjoyed this book or found it useful I’d be very grateful if you’d post a short review on Amazon. Your support really does make a difference and I read all the reviews personally so I can get your feedback and make this book even better.
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Table of Contents
Dedication
List Of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: The Rise Of The Cat
Chapter Two: The Cat As Goddess
Chapter Three: The Cat In Early Aegean And Mediterranean Civilizations
Chapter Four: The Dark Ages
Chapter Five: The Middle Ages
Chapter Six: The Early Modern Period
Chapter Seven: The Enlightenment
Chapter Eight: The Victorian Cat In The 19th Century
Chapter Nine: The Cat In The 20th Century
Chapter Ten: Epilogue The Cat Today
Timeline Of The Cat In History
List Of Theban Tombs With Cats
List Of Cat Cemeteries In Egypt
References
Index
Notes
About The Author
