Hating Medieval Cats #2: The Rod Cat November 5, 2015
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval , trackback
A few days ago Beach started the hunt for cat hating in the Middle Ages. Here is a second text from Etienne de Bourbonne (aka Stephen of Bourbon) who has sometimes appeared here before. Etienne was a Dominican inquisitor and so is something of an expert, let’s say. Auvergne is in central France.
Similarly something of this kind happened in Auvergne when many were captured near Saint-Pourcain, and brought to Clermont Ferrand, where the bishop of that place, Hugo de Turre, called me. A woman, arrested while she carried out curses, accused many and those that were captured were held prisoner. She said among her tears that she had had a female teacher who had brought her to an underground place, where there came together a crowd of men and women in torch and candle light who gathered around a vessel full of water, in the middle of them and in the centre of this vessel was planted a rod. And their teacher [man now not a woman] called up Lucifer in the name of his beard and his power and with many other things that came from them. On this happening a very black cat came down the rod and when its tail was wet with water it turned around the rod, at which point the lights went out. At that each of them took the man or woman that they came to first and they united themselves with them carnally in a ghastly fashion. In this way all the relevant men were captured who denied everything that the woman had said about frequently coming together there.
Item quasi simile accidit in Alvernia, ubi multi fuerunt capti apud Sanctum Porcianum et deducti apud Glaremontem, ubi convocaverat me episcopus eiusdem loci, dominus Hugo de Turre. Quendam mulier, capta in quibusdam maleficiis, accusavit plures et illos qui capti detinebantur , dicens cum lacrimis quod magistram quamdam [habuerat] que eam frequenter duxerat ad quemdam locum subterraneum, ubi conveniebat multitudo hominum et mulierum cum luminibus torticiorum et candelarum, circumdantes quamdam cufam plenam aqua que erat in medio, in cuius medio erat hasta affixa; et magister eorum adjurabat Luciferum per barbam suam et per potenciam quod veniret ad eos, et per multa alia; ad quam adjuracionem descendebat catus teterrimus per lanceam, et aquacum cauda sua, vadens in circuitu, omnes aspergebat, et luminaria omnia extinguebat; quo facto, quilibet eorum accipiebat illum uel illam qui ei primo occurrebat, et cum eo turpiter admiscebatur. Propter hoc dicti homines erant capti, qui hec omnia negabant, hcet dicta muher diceret eos ibi sepe vidisse convenisse.
Again we have a problem here of belief. A very similar text appears in Walter Map. Do we go along with this and treat it as some kind of real ritual or was this of a dark fantasy of a woman who was about to be made into charcoal: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com. 90% of Beach says the latter, but 10% shakes its head.
[Note that I came across this text in Sonia Maura Barillari’s Protostoria della Strega, which is to be recommended: having said that the translation is my own.]
