We also know that folks used to entertain themselves in ways that would be unthinkable today, such as gathering scores of cats and burning them in a fire.
It makes me suspicious when some phenomenon is claimed to be general, but in practice is always supported using the same example.
There’s no shortage of well-documented blood sports both before and during the Christian era. I know of few as shocking as bogus’s example (which was, incidentally, new to me), but one that comes close might be the medieval French practice of players tying a cat to a tree, restraining their own hands, and proceeding to batter the animal to death with their heads. This was mentioned in Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror; Google also turns up a reference here.
I suppose there’s something about cats that lends itself to shock value.
It makes me suspicious when some phenomenon is claimed to be general, but in practice is always supported using the same example.
There’s no shortage of well-documented blood sports both before and during the Christian era. I know of few as shocking as bogus’s example (which was, incidentally, new to me), but one that comes close might be the medieval French practice of players tying a cat to a tree, restraining their own hands, and proceeding to batter the animal to death with their heads. This was mentioned in Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror; Google also turns up a reference here.
I suppose there’s something about cats that lends itself to shock value.