Cats have a strong presence in human society and in our history. The Cat held a sacred place with the Pharaohs in Egyptian history. The pagans also looked upon the cat with great respect.

But there was a time in history when that balance between humans and felines was destabilized – and it didn’t go well for the humans.
In one interpretation of events, beginning in the early 1200s, the cat found itself on the wrong side of Pope Gregory the 9th. He had a real problem with felines. Most especially black ones. The Pope published an edict declaring that cats were bad. So bad that they carried with them the spirit of the Devil with them – and they could not be trusted.

Many of the folks got pretty committed to the ‘kill the evil cat’ cause.
Problem is, in the real world, when you kill the predator, the natural result is that the prey explodes in population. In this case the prey whose life expectancy and numbers dramatically increased were mice, and rats … who carry fleas, that also carry the plague. 

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