Carthusian cat
As a Carthusian cat or at that time also a Carthusian cat , gray-blue long-haired cats have been referred to since around the 18th century, which, like the Maltese cat , were assigned to the historical long-haired angora cats , according to BREHM Felis maniculata angorensis , because they represented a specialty among ordinary cats. Johann Matthäus Bechstein referred to this blue long-haired cat as Felis catus, var. Domesticus coeruleus and assumed in 1832 that it came from Turkey.
history
After cats had been viewed negatively for centuries in connection with heresy and sorcery, the value of these animals as helpers in combating epidemics was recognized because they destroyed the vectors of the plague - mice and rats. Not only domestic and court cats were valued again over time, particularly beautiful long-haired specimens from various countries in the Orient were introduced into Western Europe from the 17th century , which initially found their way to aristocratic houses in Spain, Portugal, France and Germany as far as England. During the Enlightenment period, a distinction was made between wild cats , exotic longhair cats and house cats . The zoologist Leopold Fitzinger described the Carthusian cat in 1869 as a long-haired, dark bluish-ash-gray or slate-gray cat, which among other things. also under the biological terms and sources or sightings Chartreuse cat JARDINE , Chat des Chartreux BUFFON or Felis domestica Cartheuserkatze GIEBEL . The long-haired cats were given names according to their origin or specialty. This is how this blue, long-haired type of cat was called Carthusian in Austria and Germany , Chartreux in France and the Maltese cat in Spain, Italy and Portugal and later also in America. In the course of the establishment of pedigree cat associations at the beginning of the 20th century, however, the long-haired representatives, such as the Angora cat and the Carthusian cat, became part of the Persian breed, which has since been renamed . All long-haired cats seem to have their origin in the Middle East . In the early literature there is talk of Syria, today's Turkey and the Caucasus.
After long-haired cats were only listed as Persians in the young cat breeding associations at the beginning of the 20th century , the term "Carthusian" and the French variant "Cartreux" for blue cats remained in common usage, but did not appear due to the renaming as a separate breed. In the meantime, however, within about two centuries since their importation to Europe, these cats had sufficient opportunity to mate with shorthair cats in an unsupervised state and to move on to western areas, e.g. B. in France to spread to Brittany . Since the short-hair gene has a dominant effect on the recessive long-hair gene, blue short-haired cats emerged over time, whose fur became a sought-after furrier product because of its color and dense texture, for which long-haired cats were unsuitable. The coat density, which is caused by the same length of the top hair and the undercoat, is a special genetic phenomenon of this cross product of long-haired cats with short-haired cats due to the presentation of the recessive long-hair gene. The same fur structure has z. B. also the British Shorthair . " The recessive long-haired breed has existed in the British breed since the beginning and without the long-haired breed (through crossbreeding with Persians) we would not have today's British breed at all ." It is the same with today's Chartreux cats. After these short-haired cats were specifically bred in France in the 1920s, the FIFe cat breeding association recognized the French variety as Chartreux in early 1970 .
Origin of the designation
Since the term Carthusian comes from Karthaus or Kartause , French. Chartreuse, Latin cartusia derives, previously probably charta ousia , i.e. Chart (ao) usia , which means something like business document to justify a legal transaction for self-reflection in a hermitage, suggests that the Roman Catholic order of the same name could have been namesake . Since these cats were very rare and also had an unusual color, it is more likely that the general usage chose this term because of its isolated occurrence and the similarity to the monks clad in blue-gray fabric. Italy was also politically torn during the period and fought over by Spain and France. Just like the origin of the name of the Maltese cat, it is very likely that the name is related to the blue-gray limestone color of the Chartreuse mountain range of the same name . The name for the mother monastery Grande Chartreuse of the Carthusian order , which was built in the 11th century, was most likely namesake for this pre-alpine mountain range and not the other way around. In 1860 the New Yearbook for Mineralogy, Geognosy, Geology says: "... between the mountains of the Grande Chartreuse and the Rhone ..."
Carthusian cat in the present
Today this blue-gray color can only be found in the aforementioned short-haired cats Chartreux, British Shorthair as well as in Russian blue and among the Persian cats. In the vernacular, therefore, the blue cats, such as. B. the short-haired Chartreux, also known today as the Carthusian cat.
Individual evidence
- ^ Brehms Thierleben Zeno.org, 1884, Angora cat taxonomy
- ↑ Economic-Technological Encyclopedia 1786, Volume 36, p. 252
- ^ Illustrated cat book, Jean Bungartz, 1896, p. 49
- ^ Academy of Sciences Vienna 1869 , accessed on July 17, 2014.
- ^ Contributions to regional studies of Austria 1832, Volume 1, pp. 304–305
- ↑ Agenda 29./30. May 2014 FIFe General Assembly
- ↑ Duden Charterhouse , accessed on July 16, 2014.
- ↑ Origin of the Carthusian Order , accessed on July 16, 2014.
- ↑ New Yearbook of Mineralogy, Geognosy, Geology. University of Heidelberg, 1860, p. 741.