"[...] When people think of witches, they often think of cats. The association of cats with witchcraft began with the Catholic church's persecution of religious groups, some of whom worshipped the cat. In the 12th century this persecution spread to splinter groups of the church itself, such as the Cathars, whom the church accused of worshipping the Devil in the form of a cat. This led to stories of Satan's appearing at Black Masses as a cat.
The witch trials started in the 13th century. People began to believe that witches had the ability to turn into an animal, usually a hare or a cat, in order to transport themselves to a sabbat (a midnight meeting) presided over by the Devil.
The idea of familiar spirits soon developed. These were imps or minor demons who took the form of any small animal, from a hedgehog to a toad. A familiar acted as an intermediary for the witch, carrying out her orders so that she wouldn't have to be at the scene of the crime when the evil deed was done.
A witch's cat came to be called a grimalkin. The Scottish goddess of witches was called Mither o' the Mawkins, a mawkin or malkin being either a cat or a hare. Originally a gremalkin was a gray cat. Later the term came to refer to the "pussies" or "catkins" on a pussy willow, as well as to the witch's cat.
The Black Death devastated Europe from 1346 to 1349. This and other plagues were blamed on witchcraft, and the witch trials became intense at this time. Pope Innocent VIII issued a decree in 1484 denouncing all cats and anyone who owned one. He commanded that, whenever a witch was burned, her cats must be burned with her. Inquistor Nicholas Remy echoed this a century later when he said that all cats were demons. During this period priests presided over festivals where cats were burned by the hundreds.
With acute labor shortages caused by the plagues, landowners turned to less labor-intensive activities, such as sheep farming. For the poor, food and jobs became scarce. As economic problems grew, the witch trials offered an excuse to get rid of "economically useless" old women. Women such as these, isolated from society, had turned to their cats for friendship.
In Europe and Britain over 200,000 supposed witches were executed. Handbooks for magistrates in the 1600s insisted that possession of a familiar - a cat - was the primary evidence of witchcraft. In New England there were over 2,000 cat-related witch trials. Millions of cats were destroyed, and the species was brought to the point of extinction.
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