Pope's Order: This is how cats and women were treated in Medieval Europe

After Pope Gregory IX declared that cats were Satan's minions in the 13th century, medieval Christians erupted in a frenzy of cat-burning spectacles that lasted up until the 1800s.

The practice took many forms across the continent but was commonly organized as an event for public entertainment.

In Burgundy, locals would tie a cat to a burning May pole and dance around it, while Parisians preferred to hire cat chasers to catch as many as possible in a single sack and then ignite them all by the bundle — often times throwing them in for good measure when an accused "witch" was burned at the stake. In Belgium, city officials chose not to use fire and instead simply threw cats from church towers.

The Germans even had a specific word for the festival of cat burning called "Katzenmusik," thought to be a reference to the sound the felines made when they were tortured.