One monk and his dog

Toby the Collie is a favourite with visitors to
Merton Priory today.

 

At Merton there is archaeological evidence of both dogs and cats in the Priory. The 1387 visitation by Bishop William Wykeham chastised the canons for keeping hunting dogs, and indeed for hunting with them. 

Regulars (nuns, monks, canons) weren't supposed to keep dogs (or cats or any other pets). At Whitby Abbey, no dogs were to be allowed in the claustral buildings, and if a dog got in, it was to be caught and told off (probably beaten). Various bishops' visitations castigate regulars for keeping pets. In the Merton case, canons shouldn't keep hunting dogs because they shouldn't be hunting. And if male canons shouldn't be hunting, then certainly female nuns shouldn't. In 1338, Bishop Northburgh told off Alice, prioress of Whiteladies in Shropshire, for keeping hunting dogs. I love the idea of nuns on a hunt.

A miller's dog from the Luttrell Psalter

Dogs and cats in the Middle Ages were chiefly kept to be useful - as vermin control and as hunting aids. The range of breeds we have now, much wider than in the Middle Ages, shows the change in purpose of dogs and cats, as they have become less necessary for living and more decorative.

Regulars' diet was supposed to be basically vegetarian, with only a little flesh. Food was a problem in keeping pets - if you have to feed your dog or cat on flesh, then you need to be having meat frequently, but you weren't supposed to. (It's interesting, and salutary, to think that our increase in pets nowadays means a vast increase in eating meat - but also that pet numbers increased only because we could eat meat more easily.)

Another reason that regulars shouldn't keep pets is that they were a distraction from divine contemplation, the chief purpose of nuns, monks and canons. Archbishop Greenfield of York wrote to the prioress and subprioress of Swine in 1314 

not to allow dogs to enter the choir during divine service lest the devotion of the women be lessened or divine obsequies impeded.

(Item injungimus priorisse et subpriorisse quod non permittant caniculos intrare chorum tempore divini obsequii si per eos devocionem dominarum subtrahi contigerit vel divinum obsequium impediri.) 

This shows that regulars had pets, and they loved them. Chaucer's portrait of Madam Eglantyne, the prioress in the band of Canterbury pilgrims, is of a soft-hearted animal-lover.

Small hounds had she, that she fed
With roasted flesh, or milk and fine white bread.
But she'd sore weep if one of them were dead,
Or if men smote it with a stick to smart:
And all was pity, and a tender heart.

You can read more about medieval pets here:

• Medieval Pets
  
• Lolcats from the BL
• The history of the cat
• Medieval dogs