Chapter 7: The round God is coming As a pet with a long history of domestication, cats’ status in human society has gone through many ups and downs.
Sometimes they are held high in the clouds and revered as sacred beasts to worship, and sometimes they fall into hell and become evil monsters that everyone shouts to beat.
The status of cats was once very noble.
In ancient Egypt, where domestic cats were first domesticated, the ancient Egyptians not only regarded cats as important family members, but also as rodent exterminators and excellent stewards of the Nile River barns.
Because the importance of cats to grain hoarding is self-evident, as time went by, the ancient Egyptians gradually deified cats and created the cat goddess Bastet with a cat head and a human body.
Every spring, the ancient Egyptians A grand sacrificial event will be held in the city, gathering hundreds of thousands of people to sing praises to the cat goddess Bastet.
It can be called the oldest cat lady show.
But the problem is that as Christian forces gradually took control of the European continent, the sacred worship of cats quickly became history in the Western world.
Some "stupid humans" began to vaguely feel that there seemed to be something wrong with cats.
The child is evil.
Especially in the late Middle Ages, many Europeans began to firmly believe that according to the Bible, God created all things to serve and be ruled by humans.
However, cats do not obey human commands like dogs or other domestic animals.
Some kind of elusive creature that hovers between the familiar and the unfamiliar, and it happens to be a nocturnal animal, so the Christian fanatics at the time associated cats with things like devils and witches.
In Western fantasy cartoons or movies in the modern world, the reason why evil witches often have a black cat lying next to them, or the witch herself turns into a black cat.
Then engaging in various evil activities in the dark was originally a feudal superstition that originated in medieval Europe.
Regardless of the relationship between the two, witches and cats are both reflections of Satan and the incarnation of evil, and must be judged and killed.
As a result, a vigorous nationwide cat-killing movement was staged in various European countries in the Middle Ages with a strong religious atmosphere.
Initially, this was just a spontaneous act among the people.
But about half a century before the arrival of the Black Death, a certain pope who seemed to be possessed by "Schrödinger, the cat-torturer" actually came out to join in the fun and publicly declared that cats were an "un-Christian evil animal" and one of those terrible witches. partners, asking all Christians to work together to drive out cats from the land of Europe with the same vigor as the Chinese in the future to eliminate the four pests.
At this point, the cat-killing movement received official encouragement and became a de facto legal obligation.
According to the teachings of God, cats are evil, and anyone, especially women, who shows affection for cats is suspected by everyone of being a heretic or a witch, and is in danger of being burned alive.
In that terrifying era of cat abuse, if a devout Christian encountered a kitten when he went out at night, he would use all kinds of cruel methods to kill the cat.
If the cat was left alive or the cat was killed, If the method is not cruel enough, it is considered to be disrespectful and disrespectful to Christ Jesus.
Many devout Christians will pile up the slaughtered cat corpses against the walls of buildings to show that they are always at odds with the devil.
During every grand festival, European Christians in the fourteenth century would kill cats to death in various bizarre ways to show that they had successfully killed "Satan the Devil" and to increase their sense of mission towards God. , and add joy to grand festivals, and also express a high degree of respect for the gods they believe in.
What makes people feel even more dizzy is that in order to please the gods, all kinds of elaborate cat abuse techniques have been invented.
For example, some Christians will imitate the method of executing heretics, tie the captured cat to a miniature burning rack, and burn it alive to show their hatred and disgust for "Satan the devil"; others will Prepare a large bowl of water, put the cat into the bowl and drown it alive; some people will disembowel the cat alive and dig out its heart; some people will Cat abusers with the most twisted personalities like very complicated methods of killing cats.
They use various sharp and hard objects to cut the cat's throat, and then insert iron objects into the cut throat to block the cat's throat.
They would then forcefully squeeze out the cat's tongue and then cut it off, and finally hang the dying cat high, allowing the tortured cat to die slowly and painstakingly.
Until the 21st century, the custom of "roasting cats" still existed in some areas of Belgium.
During every festival, some cats were burned and played with.
To be honest, almost all European Christians at that time were unprecedented cat abusers.
When European scholars in the future accused the Mayans and Aztecs of the Americas of being inhumane with their various killing techniques to worship gods, they forgot that they seemed to have just used all the above-mentioned murderous methods on the poor cat.
I don’t know how many times I have practiced this on myself.
Of course, a cat’s life is always not as valuable as a human life.
Closer to home, according to relevant documents from the European Middle Ages, the number of cats burned at the stake exceeded one million on the eve of the Black Death.
Countless cats have died from other cruel and killing methods.
Especially when the Black Death broke out in 1348, the performance of the cat slaughter movement had reached its peak.
There were almost no domestic cats in Europe.
Only some wild cats survived in a few areas.
On the eve of the plague that devoured all living beings, the desperate medieval Europeans personally eliminated their natural savior.
Under such circumstances, even if poor traveler Li Wei wanted to get some cats to catch mice, he had no place in Europe to purchase them.
In addition to the endless cat-killing campaign, medieval Europeans also had a very disgusting attitude towards another kind of rat-killing expert, the owl, because they appeared at night and were also easily associated with evil witches and devils.
Cull often.
Moreover, owls generally live in the countryside and rarely appear in densely populated medieval cities lacking vegetation.
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It is impossible to expect them to replace cats.
Although there are other ways to eliminate rats, it is also very difficult to promote them these days.
For example, the spring-loaded mousetraps that often appear in the cartoon Tom and Jerry have actually not been used until It was not invented until 1899.
Blacksmiths in medieval Europe simply could not mass-produce that kind of spring steel.
As for the so-called "mousetrap" used by Europeans in the Middle Ages, it actually used a thin branch to steal the bird-catching gadget he played with as a child from a heavy piece of wood as if it were an unlucky mouse.
When eating bait, if it moves clumsily, it may accidentally push a branch away and be crushed to death by a falling log.
Of course, this is only a theoretical application effect.
As for the actual situation?
Well, although such stupid mice are rare, at least it has a little psychological comfort effect.
Another common way to get rid of rats in later generations is to sprinkle some toxic rat poison near the house.
But the problem is that now the Black Death has broken out, and there are rotting dead people everywhere.
There are unattended food stores and abandoned kitchens full of flour and bacon.
You think that when all kinds of delicious meals are at your fingertips, Will those smart rats still take a fancy to your poison-laced bait?
In Levi's view, the most realistic way to eliminate rats at the moment is to mobilize everyone to kill rats in person.
But this will lead to a paradox: if you don't tell people the real reason for killing rats, then people who are used to being dirty and slovenly will probably think that you are mentally ill.
But if you find a way to convince them that rats are the source of the Black Death, and then order them to catch the rats with their own hands, then when the Black Death has become widespread, wouldn't this mean that people are actively attacking the source of infection?
Who is willing to sacrifice his life if he is going to die?
In short, in the absence of specific medicines and the inability to carry out a "patriotic health campaign", even time travelers were helpless against the Black Death.
Watching his uncle's coffin being slowly lowered into the grave, then filled with soil and a cross erected, Levi couldn't help but feel helpless and confused.
How long will this unprecedented plague last?
Will my wife and I survive this disaster alive?
When my uncle died, we came to the funeral.
If I die, will anyone be able to arrange my funeral?
Unfortunately, it seems that only God knows the answers to these questions.
He stood silently in the cemetery for a long time, until the sun set, and then turned around and left.
However, he did not return directly to the manor.
Instead, he walked a long way along a cobblestone path and came to a building with the same hanging hospital.
Outside the door of the tall stone house with the red eight-pointed white cross flag of the Knights.
Then, at the reminder of the personal servant, Knight Levi took out a handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it in the water tank at the door of the stone house, covered his mouth and nose, and then walked in.
After entering the door, Levi looked around.
The cold iron bars were dragged by the beating torches to create shaking shadows.
On the stained limestone floor, there were more than a dozen patients in ragged clothes sleeping.
This originally spacious room was filled to the brim.
Many people still have yellow-green pus flowing on their bodies, and some of the most serious ones have even lost consciousness, become incontinent, and have stinky feces and urine flowing all over the floor.
Therefore, the floor of the room was covered with pus and blood, phlegm marks, feces, vomit and garbage, and the pungent smell of blood and putrefaction could be smelled from a long distance away.
Listening to these painful moans like miserable and resentful spirits, even though he was mentally prepared, Knight Levi couldn't help but shudder.
This dark stone house, filled with the smell of death, is the charity hospital opened by the Knights Hospitaller's office in Marseille. oshow7: