By Ellie Jones, Cathedral Archivist
Photo: Payment to the “Custoribus & cato xiij d” in 1305.
This week we have been enjoying exploring cats and lions in our Library & Archive collections – and there are lots of them! It is World Cat Day on 8 August and International Lion Day on 10 August, so what better excuse to think about our feline friends?
The earliest references we have to cats in the Cathedral come in the 14th century, when we famously had cats on the payroll, presumably to help control vermin. Account books show that an allowance of 13 pence was paid to the custors (guardians or virgers) and cat (in Latin “custorbis et cato”) every three months between 1305 and 1467, and possibly as late as the mid-1500s. In the 1380s the Canon Treasurer quibbled certain moneys, including the payment to the cat but the payment continued, after all, the Chapter said it was just a little cat (“catulo”).
Although we don’t know the names of these generations of medieval mousers, we do have plenty of information about Tom, the now legendary one-eyed cat who was a feature of cathedral life throughout the 1940s. Stories abound about this characterful tabby who was, after his death, honoured with a tribute carved in stone in the newly rebuilt chapel of St James.
The carving of Tom is always there to be seen in the chapel of St James, as is the cat door in the north transept and numerous carvings of lions around the Cathedral. If you would like to find out more in our celebration of historical cathedral cats, symbolic cats (including big cats), scientific cats, and a literary cat, join us in the Reading Room for a free drop-in temporary exhibition on Monday 10 August, 1pm-3pm. Exhibits will include original 14th century accounts for the payments to the cats, entertaining news cuttings about Tom’s antics (and his obituary), Ulysse Aldrovandi’s description of the Syriac Cat from 1637, a model of the tomb of the ill-fated Bishop of Exeter John Catterick, an intricate medieval leopard watermark, and William Cowper’s delightful 1791 poem “The Retired Cat”.