Le Haghaidh Grá Pangur Bán. (For Love of Pangur Ban)

*Monastery and Cloisters of Reichenau. (Image: Wikimedia Commons; Hilarmont)*

Around the 9th century, an Irish monk in a Holy Roman (German) scriptorium added a poem about his white cat, whom he called “Pangur Bán” or “white fuller.” Most likely the cat was both white (bán) and fluffy (pangur— meaning a fuller, one who processed and “fluffed” wool cloth; a fuller also beat the cloth, so perhaps the monk’s cat was a little energetic.)

The text of the poem, translated by Robin Flower in 1912 goes:

I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
  'Tis a like task we are at;
  Hunting mice is his delight,
  Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
  'Tis to sit with book and pen;
  Pangur bears me no ill-will,
  He, too, plies his simple skill.
'Tis a merry thing to see
  At our tasks how glad are we,
  When at home we sit and find
  Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
  In the hero Pangur's way;
  Oftentimes my keen thought set
  Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
  Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
  'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
  All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
  O! how glad is Pangur then;
  O! what gladness do I prove
  When I solve the doubts I love.
So in peace our task we ply,
  Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
  In our arts we find our bliss,
  I have mine, and he has his.
Practice every day has made
  Pangur perfect in his trade;
  I get wisdom day and night,
  Turning darkness into light.

The Richenau Primer, open to the page where Pangur Bàn is written. The primer also includes hymns, notes on The Aeneid, a glossary of Greek words, notes on Biblical places, astronomy, and a tract on the nature of angels. The manuscript can now be found at Saint Paul’s abbey in Lavanttal, Austria. *(Image: Wikimedia Commons, CCBY)*

*Eadwine, the Scribe. From the 12th century “Eadwine Psalter” made in Canterbury. Now held by Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge. (MS. R. 17.1). (Image: Wikimedia Commons; CCBY)*

Scribes created and copied and translated texts in drafty, stone scriptoria. For all the “dark ages” lore, generations of men [and some women] focused their lives on turning words into lamps for many other scholarly feet; turning dark into light and, with manuscripts, into illumination. They copied Greek, Latin, and Islamic texts and preserved generations of knowledge, occasionally commenting, noting, making mistakes, and adding poems. Like this one, about a specific white cat.

Cats were common illustrations in manuscripts of the Middle Ages. If dogs represented fidelity (often, they did) and rabbits represented fecundity (often, they did), cats were a constant presence of actual life lived: a necessary companion in ages of rats and mice and drafty, open construction (and sharp teeth biting into your life’s work).

A white cat removing a rat from proofing bread (we think). A black cat (absurdly, or symbolically and darkly) tending birds. Plus a sleeping dog. Bodley, 764 f, 51 recto. English, ca. 1225-1250. (Image: See Open Culture in Notes)

*Detail: white cat from marginalia of Penitential Psalms from Book of Hours, MS M.1004, fol. 85r. Paris, France. Ca. 1420-1425 (Image: Edited from The Morgan Library and Museum)*

White cats (and other cats) showed up in manuscripts , not just as poems, but as figures playing instruments, chasing mice (holding mice, eating mice), being drunk, and existing as both cats and chimeras, depending on the illustrator.

The real existence of cats in the scriptoria, though, is extant through paw prints and (of course, dammit, cat) urine stains.

*Image: Emir O. Filipovic. Dumbrovnik Archives.*

*Cat urine on a manuscript. Plus, the drawing of the guilty cat and an aggravated note. (Image: Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. quarto, 249, fol. 6*)

The aggravated note about the above feline urine stain: “Here is nothing missing, but a cat urinated on this during a certain night. Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer and because of it many others [other cats] too. And beware well not to leave open books at night where cats can come.”

Hic non defectus est, sed cattus minxit desuper nocte quadam. Confundatur pessimus cattus qui minxit super librum istum in nocte Daventrie, et consimiliter omnes alii propter illum. Et cavendum valde ne permittantur libri aperti per noctem ubi cattie venire possunt.

Samuel Barber, “The Monk and His Cat” (a setting of Pangur Bán):