Off topic but I'm replying here since the medieval cat thread is closed for comments. I found my copy of Catwatching and Desmond Morris does indeed claim on page 12 that cats were persecuted in the Middle Ages.

"These good times for cats were not to last, however. In the Middle Ages the feline population of Europe was to experience several centuries of torture, torment, and death at the instigation of the Christian church. Because they had been involved in earlier pagan rituals, cats were proclaimed evil creatures, the agents of Satan and familiars of witches. Christians everywhere were urged to inflict as much pain and suffering on them as possible. The sacred had become the dammed. Cats were publicly burned alive on Christian feast days. Hundreds of thousands of them were flayed, crucified, beaten, roasted, and thrown from the tops of church towers at the urging of the priesthood, as part of a vicious purge against the supposed enemies of Christ."