The scribe who cursed a cat for peeing on his manuscript
About the work
Imported from the workbook's Full reassessment sheet, revised 7 October 2026 (record ID 114). The assessment below is the workbook's comparative judgment under its stated criteria; source links and limits are retained.
Workbook assessment: Insufficient evidence
Date or witness: c.1420
Region: Deventer, Netherlands
Workbook date-sort bounds: 1420 CE to 1420 CE; these bounds are not automatically invention or disappearance dates.
Description
A scribe explains why part of a leaf is blank, curses the cat responsible and warns against leaving books open where cats can reach them. Cologne, Historisches Archiv, G.B. quarto 249 f.68r.
Evidence of adoption or transmission
A scribe’s cat-urine complaint survives as a personal annotation.
What remains uncertain
No evidence shows the complaint was adopted or spread by contemporaries. Modern resonance does not make it a historical grassroots meme.
Workbook revision note: Reassessed using grassroots criteria