9 ms·

I don't get the point about cats and dogs being status symbols. I'm sure lower class had dogs for security and cats for rodents. Geting a portrait with a pet is

• ljf 4y ago
  Currently listening to a series of lectures on medieval Britain, and very generally most working people were close to starvation - they couldn't even afford to keep farm animals as the cost to feed them was so high as the field practices at the time were so poor. So while stray dogs and cats may have attached themselves to households or villages, I seriously doubt many except the richer families would have been able to spare the food to feed them and treat them as real pets. And unlikely they would look like the clean attractive pets in the illustrations, if you've met many stray Street cats and dogs. https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/09/04/famine-and-dearth-in-medieval-england/ https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/09/04/famine-and-deart...
  • doubleg72 4y ago
    Not to mention they'd get eaten by the poor