French Nuns Meow Like Cats

Call it a case of mass hysteria or a break out of mass delusion, an incident took place that has since perplexed those who found out about it. Sometime back years ago, one nun began to meow comparable to that of a cat.

Not long after this, the other nuns also joined in and started meowing. It is unknown exactly for how long this lasted for but it was documented in a manuscript. These nuns would meow together every day, for several hours at a time.

It must have been quite the spectacle, as these nuns acted out due to overwhelming stress. This was likely caused by different things including being forced to become a nun, leading celibate lives, vows of poverty and the emotional and physical stress of their daily duties, after becoming a nun.

These nuns were forced to stop, after being threatened to be whipped. Ironically, the type of whip that may have been used, is known as a ‘Cat Of Nine Tails Whip’. Eventually, these women did stop and the meowing soon ended. It is believed that soldiers were used to stop these women from meowing.

They were placed outside of the convent and were provided with the tools necessary to stop them. These women were forcibly put into a situation, that affected their lives. They would never be the same again and likely their personalities may have changed, from the control of the convent.

Perhaps the problem with all of this was due to the beliefs people had back during this time period. During the Middle Ages, people used to believe that certain animals could possess humans. Some of these animals included either a cat or wolf, as an example. In France back during this time, cats were despised by many people.

Another bizarre incident took places in Germany. One nun, became possessed and began biting all of her companions around her. They reacted by biting back and soon enough all of these nuns started biting others. News of this quickly spread and infection set in. Each of these nuns were now infected with disease, likely caused by a lack of treatment.

Soon enough, other convents had breakouts among them. The germs spread between these sisters. Areas such as Saxony and Brandenburg, quickly became a haven for this biting mania to occur.

Eventually, places such as Rome also reported these types of incidents. After time passed, news of this stopped. It is unknown just how many of these nuns were emotionally and mentally exhausted over these incidents. No doubt, it was a weird time in history.