Before getting to the tale of Pangur Ban, let me relate to you a description of cats given by Bartolomaeus Anglicus (Bartholomew the Englishman), a 13th c. Franciscan monk and encyclopedist who wrote the 19-volume De Proprietatibus Rerum (On the Properties of Things), an exhaustive work on theology, medicine, the natural sciences, and geography, some time before A.D. 1260. He wrote that cats are

... a beast of uncertain hair and color. For some cat is white, some red, and some black, some calico and speckled in the feet and in the ears... And hath a great mouth and saw teeth and sharp and long tongue and pliant, thin, and subtle. And lappeth therewith when he drinketh... And he is a full lecherous in youth, swift, pliant and merry, and leapeth and rusheth on everything that is before him and is led by a straw, and playeth therewith; and is a right heavy beast in age and full sleepy, and lieth slyly in wait for mice and is aware where they be more by smell than by sight, and hunteth and rusheth on them in privy places. And when he taketh a mouse, he playeth therewith, and eateth him after the play. And is as it were wild, and goeth about in time of generation. Among cats in time of love is hard fighting for wives, and one scratcheth and rendeth the other grieviously with biting and with claws. And he maketh a ruthful noise and ghastful, when one proffereth to fight with one another, and unneth is hurt when he is thrown from a high place. And is a cruel beast when he is wild and runneth in woods and hunteth the small wild beasts... And falleth on his own feet when he falleth out of high place... And when he hath a fair skin, he is as it were proud thereof, and goeth fast about. And when his skin is burnt, then he bideth at home. And is oft for his fair skin taken of the skinner, and slain and flayed.

"Among cats in time of love is hard fighting for wives," "And when he hath a fair skin, he is as it were proud thereof, and goeth fast about" -- brilliant! And while we're on the general topic of the cat in the medieval world, heed this sage advice from the so-called "Distaff Gospels," a compendium of late 15th c. French "old wives tales" recounted as conversations between women sitting around together on long Winter nights. On the second night, the women say:

When you see a cat sitting in the sun in a window, licking her behind and not rubbing her ear with her leg, be sure that it will rain that very day...

..Lady Mehault Caillotte got up and said that it is true; indeed her washing is still in the laundry vat, and she dares not wash it because her cat does not stop licking her behind.

What an unfortunate mish-mash of personal pronouns! But what a great excuse for not doing the laundry: "Dear, I couldn't possibly do the laundry today; I saw Tiddles licking her butt!"

And there is more cat-wisdom to be learned; on the fifth night, the women say:

A woman who does not want to lose a good cat, if she has one, must rub the four legs with butter for three nights, and the cat will never leave the house.

"Good cat"? Ha! Rotten to the core, the lot of them -- but we love them anyway!

Would you like to see a 15th century manuscript that got walked on by a medieval cat -- who left his inky pawprints all over it? Below, click the picture on the left to enlarge. Click the picture to the right to see a manuscript written in Deventer, Netherlands in 1420 -- and which has a large empty spot where a cat had peed on the page, forcing the scribe to write around it. He left a curse on the kitty, and all cats, which reads:

 

But let's end this digression and move on to the absolutely delightful poem, Pangur Ban. It was written in the 8th or 9th century, on a 4-page manuscript (see picture at the bottom of the page) by an anonymous Irish Benedictine monk who lived in the extant St. Paul's Monastery on Reichenau Island in Lake Constance (Bodensee), where Germany meets with Austria. Imagine the monk at night in his candlelit cell, delving into Sacred Scripture's eternal Truths, together and happy with his kitty, who went about his own business. Little did he know that 1,200 years later, others would fall in love with Pangur Ban, too.

 
And here it is in the original language for you scholars out there: