Why Are We Afraid of Black Cats?

Spooky season rolls on and we have another interesting topic to explore. I’ve already talked about the history of the origins of Friday the 13th. We will continue our celebration of the Halloween season with the next eerie image – the black cat.

My wife loves black cats – she grew up with a pair of them. Even though we have a ginger cat now, she is constantly looking out for a black cat to adopt. While some people love black cats, others don’t have an opinion. Today, even fewer people have the real fear of the black cat that used to be prevalent in the Western world.

Where did the fear of the black cat come from?

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages was a period of European history that was dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. This period of time, starting in the 5th century until the Renaissance around the 14th century. With the fall of the already fractured Roman empire, we saw the increased influence of the Church, the rise of feudalism, and the tribalism of the people in the continent.

The Middle Ages – also known as the Dark Ages – was the time of the Plague, Canterbury Tales, and the European Witch Trials. The Witch Trials, while always a village issue, began to explode in the 14th century. We can trace the start of the fear back to Pope Gregory IX in the year 1233. He delivered his Vox in Rama, a warning to King Henry in Germany about the wild Luciferianism that was taking place in his land.

In this telling of witchcraft, the fallen angel Lucifer was transformed to have his lower body covered in fur “like a cat”. This, plus the long history of cat worship in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology, led Christians to fear the cat. Just like the Galinthias was turned into a cat to serve goddess Hera in Greek mythology, witches were manifesting into black cats to serve their master Lucifer.

The Fallout of Fear

The satanic panic that was rampant throughout this time led to the slaughter of cats throughout Europe. An accusation of witchcraft was validated with the house cat, and both the woman and the cat would be murdered. There are multiple European cultures and practices that involved violence towards black cats.

“Indeed the belief that the torture or killing of cats could break spells continued across northern Europe. Denmark’s Fastelavn held at the start of lent was based on the premise that for spring to begin, evil had to be banished. That evil came to be neatly personified in the form of black cats that were beaten to death to purge the new season of evil spirits.

Elsewhere in Europe, the legacy of cat killings passed into folk practices. Cat burning became a favorite medieval pastime in France, where cats were suspended over fires in cages or doused and set alight- even chased on fire through the streets by cat chasers. In Ypres in Belgium, it was the custom to hurl cats from the belfry of local churches and then set them on fire during the festival of cats or Kattenstoet. This cruel practice continued until 1817 although the Kattenstoet continues to this day- involving stuffed cats instead.”
– “Thou Shalt not suffer a Cat to Live”

This deep fear of the satanic led to the brutalization of cats as well as women in Europe throughout this period of history. Cerridwen Fallingstar, a Wiccan priestess, makes an interesting point. “Cats, like the women accused of witchcraft, tend to exhibit a healthy disrespect of authority… They don’t fawn, like dogs, upon even the unworthy. In the church, neither independent women, nor independent animals, were to be tolerated.”

Cats In America

The fear of the black cat was never as prevalent in America as it was in Europe. Even though the Puritans brought over this superstition, it did not hold as well as it did in Europe during the Middle Ages. The American Witch Trials were in a much smaller scale when compared to that in Europe. Luckily for cats in America, they were safe from harm.

These superstitions still hold on in the zeitgeist of American culture. This is why we see black cats during Halloween and why black cats are adopted less than other cats! This superstition is an unfounded hold out from a time of panic in Europe that we should be move on from today.