The reforms in the estate were ongoing, but when Marin inspected the granary, he became furious.
Why?
Because a swarm of rats suddenly scurried out of the granary.
Enraged, Marin commanded everyone to chase and kill the rats.
However, rats are nimble creatures, and among the young men he sent out, only one managed to hit a particularly unlucky rat.
The rest all escaped.
During dinner, Marin fumed, “Why are there so many rats? Don’t we have any cats?”
“Cats?” The entire family looked at Marin as if he were a fool.
Realizing something was off, Marin cautiously asked, “What’s wrong? Did I say something strange?”
“Marin, don’t you know that cats are considered evil creatures?”
“Evil? Cats? Where did that come from?” Marin was a bit stunned.
“Yes, brother, it’s said that wicked black cats are actually evil sorcerers in disguise, and they are symbols of misfortune and disaster!” His sister Anne said seriously.
“Oh my gosh! How could you have such an idea?” Marin then remembered that in the Middle Ages, there was indeed a belief that cats were the embodiment of evil, likely because their eerie calls during mating season scared people.
“The bishop said so!” Even the usually sharp-witted Lady Mary seemed a bit unsure at this point.
After all, the bishop’s assertion that bathing was sinful had already been debunked in the Hoffman estate.
“That’s nonsense. Cats are natural enemies of rats. With cats around, we wouldn’t have to worry about rats stealing our grain. I noticed that without cats, the rats have become rampant and have eaten far too much of our food. That rat we managed to kill was so fat because it had gorged itself!”
“Ha! Haha!” His younger siblings burst out laughing.
“Don’t laugh! These nasty rats are competing with you for your bread, do you understand?”
“Oh…” His younger siblings pretended to understand, though they were still somewhat confused.
But Marin’s imposing manner suppressed any further laughter.
“So, Marin, what do you plan to do?” asked Old Hoffman.
“I want to raise cats!”
“Uh… But brother, no one around here keeps cats anymore. Ever since the Church declared cats to be evil creatures, people have stopped keeping them. Where would you even find kittens?”
“No one raises cats?” Marin was a bit taken aback.
He had assumed there would be plenty of people with cats, and that it would be easy to find someone with a mother cat who had kittens.
“That’s right, ever since the Church’s teachings, people have given up on keeping cats. Naturally, this has led to a rat problem.”
“What? Marin, what do you mean? What does the Black Death have to do with cats?” The family was shocked.
“Well, according to Eastern medical texts, the Black Death, also known as the plague, originated in the East. This disease is primarily spread by rats, hence the name ‘plague.’ It’s said that the Black Death came from Asia and was brought to Europe by Venetian merchant ships. The rats on those ships were the main carriers.”
“My God, is that true?”
“Yes. Europeans don’t keep cats, which has led to an overpopulation of rats. Since the Black Death was spread by rats, it’s no wonder it spread so quickly and killed so many people in Europe!”
“I see, then we must raise cats right away!” The younger children, Simon, Albert, and Anne, were all frightened and spoke up hastily.
“But where are we going to find kittens?” Marin was at a loss.
“I know where we can find some!” Lady Mary said after thinking for a moment.
“Where?” Marin perked up.
“My hometown, East Frisia!”
“East Frisia?”
“Yes, most of the people living by the coast in Frisia are fishermen. They’re skilled at sailing out to sea to fish. If you walk through the fishing villages along the Frisia coast, you’ll see lots of salted fish hanging outside every house.”
“And?”
“Although the Frisian people don’t keep cats, cats love fish. So, there are always a lot of stray cats around the fishing villages in Frisia. Sometimes they steal the dried fish hanging outside, and other times they eat the fish innards that the Frisians discard after cleaning their catch.”
“Aww, poor little kittens!” Anne said sympathetically.
“So, you’re saying there are a lot of stray cats near the fishing villages in Frisia?”
“Yes, plenty.”
“Alright then, Adler, let’s take a few of our men and go to the Frisian coast to catch some kittens!”
“Catch cats?”
“Yes!”
The next day, Marin and Adler mounted their horses, accompanied by two of Adler’s servants, who rode draft horses.
Kahn and Kohler wanted to join, but they only knew how to ride oxen and weren’t yet skilled in horse riding, so Marin took Adler’s two servants who were more experienced with horses.
The journey from Bochum to East Frisia wasn’t far, only about 400 miles.
Since Marin and his group were traveling light without heavy armor, carrying only their swords and each with two horses, they reached the coast by the third day.
Once they arrived, Marin indeed found many stray cats hiding in the grass near the fishing villages.
However, these strays were cautious and would hide in the dense grass as soon as they saw people, making them hard to catch.
But this didn’t deter Marin.
He adapted a method he had learned from a school book about catching sparrows (using a bamboo pole to prop up a basket with some grain underneath), modifying it slightly to catch cats instead.
The method involved buying some fish with a strong smell from the fishing village and a few wooden baskets.
Marin tied strings to small wooden sticks to prop up the baskets, with the smelly fish placed underneath.
The stray cats, living in harsh conditions and often hungry, couldn’t resist the temptation and ventured under the baskets to eat the fish…
At Marin’s command, the baskets were pulled down, trapping the cats.
Using this method, Marin and his men caught over a dozen cats.
Most of the cats they caught were younger, as the older ones were more cautious and wouldn’t fall for the trick.
But Marin preferred the younger cats anyway, as they were easier to domesticate.
Older cats were more likely to escape.
Out of the dozen or so cats they caught, Marin eliminated the adults and a few black cats.
In Europe, black cats were seen as symbols of bad luck, and while Marin wanted to raise cats, he didn’t want to keep ones that might frighten people.
In the end, Marin selected five kittens with good fur coloring to bring back.
Since cats liked eating fish and the Hoffman estate was near the Ruhr River, where fishing was possible, Marin also decided to recruit a few destitute fishermen from the village.
Oddly enough, despite the Hoffman estate being near the Ruhr River, which should have meant an abundance of fish, the residents rarely ate fish.
This was because Europeans saw bathing as taboo, so people were reluctant to go into the water.
Only coastal fishermen, forced by necessity, would brave the waters to fish.
In inland areas, very few people fished, and only a handful of people fished casually in their spare time.
This was because, in inland areas, if people didn’t have land to farm, they could choose to hunt or work as laborers, so very few inland Europeans fished in rivers.
As a result, freshwater fish were abundant in inland rivers.
Marin realized that the Hoffman estate had been sitting on a treasure trove while living in poverty…
Marin planned to settle these few fishermen by the Ruhr River on the Hoffman estate.
He would grant them permission to fish in the river near the estate (in medieval Europe, both hunting and fishing required noble authorization, and the majority of the catch had to be given to the nobles).
This way, the estate residents would occasionally be able to enjoy fresh fish.