consorting with the beast

The medieval church actively opposed pet keeping, since pets would distract their owners from devotion to God and consume food needed by God’s flock. In the 1300s the Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham, felt he must chastise the nuns of the local convents for bringing pet “birds, rabbits, hounds, and such frivolous things” to church, and paying more attention to the animals than to the priests, “to the grievous peril of their souls.” Women who kept pet “familiarsˮ faced suspicion of consorting with the beast. War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals