Someone Told the Bishop Her Cat Was Stealing Their Cows' Milk
Someone Told the Bishop Her Cat Was Stealing Their Cows' Milk.
It's the sort of complaint that makes you wonder what on earth was happening in medieval Herefordshire.
But someone actually reported it.
During an episcopal visitation in the Diocese of Hereford, an accusation was recorded against a woman who was said to keep an animal in the shape of a cat which sucked milk from her neighbours' cows.
Yes.
Someone told the bishop about a milk-stealing cat.
And, nearly 800 years later, the allegation is still sitting in the records.
But was there actually a cat?
We don't know.
And this is where the record gets particularly interesting.
What survives is an accusation.
Someone reported the matter to the bishop's officials, and the allegation was recorded during the visitation.
That doesn't tell us whether the animal actually existed.
It doesn't tell us whether the woman admitted to anything.
It doesn't tell us whether the cows were actually losing milk.
And it certainly doesn't tell us whether the neighbours were right about what they thought was causing it.
All we have is the accusation.
And someone thought it was worth reporting.
That's the bit I keep coming back to.
Medieval episcopal visitations weren't just opportunities for bishops to inspect churches. Their officials collected information about the behaviour of clergy and local communities, and people could bring complaints and accusations to their attention.
Most of those complaints were considerably less entertaining.
Adultery.
Violence.
Disputes.
Clergy behaving badly.
Churches in need of repair.
And then, somewhere among all of that:
There's a woman whose cat is drinking our cows' milk.
What was actually going on?
We don't know.
Perhaps there was an entirely ordinary explanation.
Perhaps someone really did believe the animal was responsible for the missing milk.
Perhaps there was a dispute between neighbours that had somehow found its way into the bishop's paperwork.
The record doesn't give us enough information to know.
And that's important.
This is an accusation, not proof that a magical milk-stealing cat actually existed.
But it is proof of something else.
Someone, somewhere in medieval Herefordshire, thought this was serious enough to tell the bishop.
And the bishop's officials thought it worth writing down.
Which means that nearly eight centuries later, we can still sit here asking exactly the same question:
What the hell was going on with that cat?
Source
Records of episcopal visitations in the Diocese of Hereford, including the visitation records of Richard Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, in the late thirteenth century.