Why Do Medieval Cats Look So Terrible in Paintings?

Medieval artists could illuminate an entire manuscript with gold leaf. They could paint vast battles, terrifying dragons, saints, sinners, demons and the torments of Hell.

Then somebody asked them to draw a cat.

And everything went horribly wrong.

Cats in medieval art are a magnificent collection of bulging eyes, unsettling human faces, questionable anatomy and expressions suggesting that the cat has just remembered it left the oven on.

Some look like tiny lions. Some look like angry men wearing fur suits. Others look as though the artist had once been told about a cat by someone who had briefly seen one across a field.

So what happened?

Were medieval artists simply terrible at drawing cats?

Not exactly.

Medieval Artists Weren't Trying to Take a Photograph

It is tempting to look at a medieval cat and think:

“Had this person ever actually seen a cat?”

The answer was almost certainly yes.

Cats were very much part of everyday medieval life. They lived in homes, workshops, religious communities and other places where their talent for catching mice made them rather useful.

And medieval artists certainly weren't incapable of sophisticated work. Illuminated manuscripts could be extraordinarily intricate, filled with delicate decoration, gold leaf and astonishing detail.

The problem is that we are looking at them with modern eyes.

Today, we often judge an animal picture by how accurately it resembles the real thing. Medieval art didn't always work like that. An image could be decorative, symbolic, religious, humorous or simply part of a visual storytelling tradition.

In medieval bestiaries — illustrated books about animals — creatures were often presented not merely as zoological specimens but as carriers of stories and moral meanings. Real animals could sit quite happily alongside dragons, unicorns and other fabulous beasts.

Accuracy, in other words, was not always the main event.

Sometimes the important thing was not whether the cat looked exactly like a cat.

It was whether you understood that it was a cat.

Even if it appeared to be deeply disappointed in you.

Cats Had a Job

Long before cats became professional internet celebrities, they had actual employment.

Mice and rats were a serious nuisance in a world where food had to be stored without modern containers and valuable manuscripts were made from materials that needed protecting. A competent mouser could therefore be a genuinely useful member of the household.

Cats were practical pest controllers, but they could also be companions. Surviving medieval manuscripts and texts give us glimpses of people living alongside cats and, occasionally, being just as fond of them as we are today.

So the idea that medieval people simply didn't know what cats looked like doesn't really stand up.

They knew cats.

They lived with cats.

They watched cats.

And then, for reasons known only to God and the manuscript illuminator, they occasionally painted them in ways that have kept the internet entertained centuries later.

The Medieval Bestiary Was Not a Nature Documentary

To understand some of the stranger animals in medieval art, it helps to understand the bestiary.

A medieval bestiary was a collection of accounts of animals and other creatures, often accompanied by illustrations. But it wasn't simply an early version of an animal encyclopaedia.

Animals could carry religious and moral meanings. Their supposed habits might be used to teach a lesson about human behaviour, faith or the divine order of the world.

And the creatures didn't even have to exist.

A perfectly ordinary cat might appear alongside a unicorn, dragon or other fabulous beast without anybody feeling the need to call the publisher.

The bestiary was one of the most popular types of illustrated text in medieval northern Europe, bringing together both real and fantastic creatures.

This helps explain why looking for modern zoological accuracy in every medieval animal illustration rather misses the point.

The medieval artist wasn't necessarily thinking:

“I must capture the subtle musculature and natural movement of Felis catus.”

He may have been thinking:

“Cat. Four legs. Tail. Whiskers. Done. Now, where's my gold leaf?”

Why Do So Many Medieval Cats Look Almost Human?

This is perhaps the most disturbing part.

Many medieval cats don't merely look inaccurate.

They look like people.

People who have been turned into cats as punishment.

Their eyes stare forwards. Their mouths form strange little expressions. Some appear furious. Others worried. A few look as though they are about to explain why your application for a mortgage has been declined.

Part of this comes from artistic convention and stylisation. Medieval artists worked within visual traditions and repeated recognisable forms. The goal was not always the kind of observational realism we expect from later Western art.

But there is another important point.

We are especially sensitive to faces.

Give an animal forward-facing eyes, a slightly human mouth and a strong expression, and our brains immediately start seeing a personality.

And medieval cats have a lot of personality.

Mostly the personality of a disgruntled middle manager.

Then There Are the Margins

If the main illustration in a medieval manuscript was where serious business happened, the margins were sometimes where things became considerably less sensible.

Medieval manuscript marginalia  can contain an extraordinary assortment of animals, hybrids, monsters and scenes of general nonsense.

Cats play with string.

Cats play musical instruments.

Rabbits attack people.

Knights fight giant snails.

Animals behave like humans.

Humans behave like animals.

And everybody appears to have agreed that this was a perfectly reasonable thing to put next to a religious text.

One surviving Book of Hours even contains a whole musical troupe of cats, pigs, dogs and rabbits spread across several pages.

The Middle Ages, it turns out, had memes.

They just took significantly longer to make.

Did Medieval People Actually Like Cats?

The relationship was complicated.

Cats could be useful, valued and loved. They also accumulated negative associations in parts of medieval European culture, including connections with deceit, the supernatural and, eventually, witchcraft.

But it would be far too simplistic to say that medieval people simply hated cats.

The manuscripts themselves tell a much more interesting story.

Cats appear hunting mice.

Cats appear as companions.

Cats appear playing.

Cats appear in margins doing things that no responsible cat has ever been authorised to do.

Their presence suggests familiarity. Medieval people clearly observed their behaviour closely enough to recognise something that every modern cat owner knows:

Cats are ridiculous.

A cat playing with a piece of string was funny hundreds of years before anyone could upload the evidence to TikTok.

Perhaps Medieval Cats Aren't Bad Art After All

Of course, some medieval cats are beautifully rendered.

Others look like a potato that has received terrible news.

But judging all medieval art by modern standards of realism misses much of what makes it so fascinating.

These artists were working in different traditions, for different purposes, with different expectations. Their animals could be symbols, decorations, characters, jokes or moral lessons.

And yet, centuries later, the strangest medieval cats are often the ones we love most.

A perfectly realistic cat is impressive.

A cat with the face of a tax collector, the body of a ferret and the haunted eyes of a man who has seen the abyss?

That is unforgettable.

Perhaps that's why medieval cats have found a whole new audience in the modern world. Their wonky faces and inexplicable expressions feel oddly at home in the age of memes.

The manuscripts may be hundreds of years old.

But the cats?

The cats are still being cats.

Want More Medieval Nonsense?

If strange creatures, questionable artistic decisions and the less dignified corners of history are your thing, have a wander through Wyrd Words.

You might also enjoy our exploration of medieval butt trumpets — because apparently drawing a cat badly wasn't enough to keep a medieval artist occupied.

And if you'd rather take a little medieval chaos home with you, explore our collection of medieval-inspired designs at Wyrd Dezigns.

History was weird.

We just put it on mugs.