Shakespeare mentions cats over 30 times in his plays, including to talk about a gib cat, a musk-cat, cats chasing mice and even making perfume. It's obvious that cats were present for Shakespeare's lifetime, but what do these references in the plays show us about their place in society and perhaps in people's homes for Shakespeare's England? Did Shakespeare keep a pet cat, would they have been useful for fighting against plague, and what exactly did a 16th century cat look like?
Here today to help answer these questions and take us through the artifacts, primary documents, and paintings that reveal the feline world of Shakespeare's England is our guest, Helen Parish.
Helen Parish is a Professor of History at the University of Reading and author of, "Paltrie Vermin, Cats, Mise, Toads, and Weasils": Witches, Familiars, and Human-Animal Interactions in the English Witch Trials"
Helen's work focuses on cats as a witch's familiar, but her research looks further into the details about how cats lived in the 16th cenutry and today she's here to help us explore cats for Shakespear's England.
