500 - 1500 CE
Horses in Medieval Europe
Discover how horses became the backbone of medieval European society — revolutionizing warfare, agriculture, transportation, and social status.
12 min readHunting hounds, lapdogs of the court, and cats through the Middle Ages.
6 stories
Discover how horses became the backbone of medieval European society — revolutionizing warfare, agriculture, transportation, and social status.
12 min read
Every domestic rabbit in the world — every Holland Lop, every Flemish Giant, every Rex — descends from a single wild species: the European rabbit native to the Iberian Peninsula. Their path from prey animal to beloved companion runs through French monasteries, Roman pleasure parks, Victorian exhibition halls, and a California garage where a nonprofit was founded in 1988 that would permanently change how humans think about rabbits.
9 min read
In the span of a few centuries, cats went from respected household guardians to targets of organized persecution across medieval Europe. The story of how religious fear, superstition, and a papal decree reshaped humanity's relationship with the cat — and may have accelerated the Black Death.
8 min read
Medieval Europe developed a sophisticated science of hunting dogs — five distinct types with specialized roles, detailed training manuals, and legal protections that rivaled those extended to humans. The breeds that emerged from this era still run, point, and retrieve today.
8 min read
For five centuries, the lapdog was far more than a pet in European courts. It was a status marker, a political symbol, a subject for master painters, and — in an age of cold stone palaces — a practical source of warmth. The story of the lapdog is the story of European aristocratic culture itself.
8 min read
Cats arrived in Japan as cargo guards on Buddhist scripture ships around the 7th century CE. Within three centuries, they were sleeping on silk cushions in the Imperial Palace. Today Japan has cat islands, 2,500 cat cafés, and Hello Kitty — a $7 billion brand built on an animal that wasn't even native to the islands. The story of how this happened reveals as much about Japanese culture as it does about cats.
9 min read