We sometimes refer to the early Middle Ages as the Dark Ages, but the times don’t seem so dark if you see some of the beautifully illuminated manuscripts, the handwritten books copied in monasteries. Monks embellished the writing with ornate letters and colors and drawings in the page margins. Some of these volumes, such as the famous Book of Kells, still exist, and they overflow with sketches of real and mythical animals, including cats. Apparently the monks who produced these masterpieces thought rather highly of the natural world in general and cats in particular.
