February 12, 2005
His Grace's cat
With its bristling whiskers and alert pose, it is every inch the champion mouser.From the Times. The exhibition is of animal mummies, including a good number that were naturally mummified. The Times article also notes:But this cat, once the faithful servant of the Duke of Bedford, caught its last rodent more than 300 years ago.
The mummified pet, discovered in the foundations of Woburn Abbey, will go on display for the first time at the Natural History Museum's Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire.
It is believed that the cat was such a popular member of the Duke's household that he ordered it to be buried in a small brick capsule in an outhouse of the Abbey.
Richard Sabin, Curator of Mammals at the Natural History Museum, said it may have been common practice to bury cats in the foundations of houses to ward off evil spirits. . .The BBC writeup also cites Savin as stating, "[the Woburn Abbey cat] was buried in the foundations to protect the building against rodents" -- which rather contradicts the Times' lead."Sometimes there were cats and rats buried together - it is very rare, but we have got some examples of those in the collection. It seems to be that this was a northern European tradition and there is a suggestion that it may have been bought over to England when the Saxons came over or maybe earlier."
A similarly mummified cat was found under the entrance of the Natural History Museum itself in South Kensington, London, and another recently in nearby Knightsbridge in a Georgian house which was being renovated.
Posted by David on February 12, 2005 9:52 PM
I have read a LOT of the archeology reports (not the books, the tedious stuff) on domestic architecture and never come across a buried cat. Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't strike me as something Germanic at all.
Posted by: Michael Tinkler on February 13, 2005 7:59 AM
The BBC story links to an older article on a medieval house in Essex:
Winter's Armoury is one of the oldest homes in Magdalen Laver. . .
The cats were placed in the walls while still alive hundreds of years ago, supposedly to ward off evil spirits.I wonder if there is any evidence for them being immured alive, or if this is a bit of dramatic elaboration.
Previous owners discovered the cats, and current householder Charlotte Bassett has made them a feature.I have no idea of the origins of such practices, although they obviously go back a long, long way; tracing them is complicated by the fact, noted in Ralph Merrifield's 1987 The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic, that archeologists have tended to dismiss the odd dead animal under the floorboards. The significance of a single such find may not be obvious, only coming into focus after a pattern emerges from a large number of parallel discoveries.
Posted by: David on February 13, 2005 8:59 AM
cronaca.com