Did you ever imagine that you’d see a “top ten” list like this? It’s not so much that a medieval monk drew a cat in the margins of an illuminated manuscript, but that there are this many of them in a list at Discarding Images, all licking their butts. Why? EmpressCallipygos at Metafilter offers an explanation, which is worth reading in its entirety. Here’s an excerpt:
So imagine this monk sitting there in a dimly-lit scriptorum, back bent over his work - he's tired, he's achey, grinding the pigment for the paint made him sneeze, and that one other monk with the mole gave him a dirty look and oh for goodness sake how could i help it the stuff got up my NOSE, brother - and he's got a long way to go before he's done illuminating this one page from Revelations, and come to think of it it was the monk with the mole that insisted there be so much blue in the damn thing....
...And in walks his cat, just sort of ambling in. Our monk momentarily glances up, too busy to do much more than notice Puss-Puss walking in. Ah, though, maybe he can watch the cat for just a second, take a little break...
...And he looks up again, just in time to see Puss-Puss plonk down and start to lick his butt, something which always tickles him because dear lord how on earth do they get their legs cocked so far back....
And after a second, our tired, cranky, bored monk switches the blue ink for the gray, and begins drawing.
Cat images may be shared by more people in the modern age, because internet, but laughing at cats and attempting to share that humor has a long history. -via Metafilter
No, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't think of it first.