Black Plague swept through Europe in the 14th century and killed between 75 million and 200 million people. There have been assertions on the internet that this was caused by a widespread culling of cats for religious reasons, which led to the continent being overrun by rats. Considering how much the average person knows about medieval Europe, this makes sense. The problem is that it's not true. Oh, for sure there were some sporadic cat killings, but they were few and highly localized, and made no difference in the overall cat population.
Medieval people loved their cats, even if they didn't pamper them quite as much as we do today. Cats were exceedingly useful, usually in pest control but sometimes in doing the chores like spinning wool, as shown above. They asked for little in return, and provided gossip-free companionship, which is why in at least one convent, nuns were allowed to have one cat even when they were prohibited from talking to other nuns. Read about the way medieval folk regarded their cats, and indeed enshrined them in plenty of art, at Going Medieval. -via Metafilter