Ugly Medieval Cats 2026 Christmas Advent Calendar The Cursed Cat Kingdom

The box is designed like a page from an illuminated manuscript, bordered in red and blue with painted flowers and curling vines. A cat king sits enthroned beneath a starry arch, wrapped in an ermine-trimmed red robe and holding a fish as a sceptre, with a jester cat and a hooded monk cat at his side and snowy castle towers behind. Heraldic shields and scrolls announce 24 Days of Medieval Cat Chaos and The Cursed Cat Kingdom.

The manuscript-style box surrounded by its 24 cats.

Old manuscripts drew cats from ideas, not models

Medieval painters certainly knew what cats looked like, but they were not trying for realism. They worked from symbols, pattern books and the descriptions in bestiaries, so their cats ended up with flat faces, worried eyebrows and bodies that bend in impossible ways.

Monks loved them anyway. In the ninth-century Irish poem "Pangur Bán", a scholar compares his hunt for meaning in his books with his white cat's hunt for mice, and decides they are both happy at their work.

Candles, a fireplace and a lion banner set the scene for the cat court.

One scribe in Deventer cursed a cat in writing

"Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night in Deventer." The copyist even added a warning not to leave books open overnight where cats can reach them.

The note was written in 1420 on a page left stained by a cat, and it still survives. In 15th-century Dubrovnik, another cat walked across a fresh manuscript and left a trail of inky paw prints for historians to find.

The calendar's subtitle, The Cursed Cat Kingdom, is a fond salute to those uninvited visitors. Every cat inside looks perfectly capable of knocking over an inkwell.

The ornaments borrow from the margins

Medieval page margins were full of jokes. Several of these cats come straight from that tradition:

• The cat with a snail's shell recalls the knights fighting snails, one of the most famous oddities in manuscript margins.
• The jester, the lute player and the angel with a trumpet echo the musicians and fools painted around psalms.
• The scribe at his desk and the cat reading a red book belong to the monks who copied texts by hand.
• The knight with a shield, the archer and the wizard holding a star step out of the old romances.
• The cat in a chalice and the cat in a barrel are pure absurdity, which is exactly the point.

The king, the monk, the angel and the wizard on the tree.

December sneaks into the cursed kingdom

Seasonal details slip in too: a cat in a Santa hat, one with reindeer antlers, one in a wreath and one beside a tiny tree. They hang naturally beside the knights and jesters, as if the whole court had dressed up for the feast.

For cat people who also love books, set the box next to one of our cat beds inspired by classic books. Then let the living cat judge the painted ones.

The whole cursed kingdom laid out on a wooden table.

Written by Nadia Marsh, Collectibles Specialist at DoesignUs.