The Meowing Nun Contagion
Mass Hysterias · 1400
The steel cabinet labeled MASS HYSTERIAS is the third from the left, its runner dry and screeching slightly when pulled. Inside, the folders are packed with a tight, uniform density that suggests my mother spent years compressing these histories into a single, unyielding block of paper. The file for the year 1400 is remarkably thin, containing only a few photocopied pages from a nineteenth-century volume and a single page of her typed commentary. It is labeled “The Meowing Nun Contagion.”
The narrative itself is a staple of psychological literature, representing one of the most widely cited anecdotes of mass psychogenic illness, though its actual historical foundations are incredibly fragile. The account describes an incident within an unspecified, very large convent in France during the medieval period. According to the narrative, a single nun began to meow like a cat, a behavior that quickly spread to other nuns until the entire community was participating in daily, structured “cat concerts.” The noise reportedly disturbed the surrounding community, and the collective behavior only ceased after local authorities or soldiers threatened the nuns with physical punishment, specifically whipping.
As a historian, the absolute lack of primary evidence is glaring. The sole origin for this widely repeated story is a translator’s note by Benjamin Guy Babington in the 1844 English edition of J.F.C. Hecker’s The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Babington attributes the story to an unnamed “good medical work” but provides no specific location, date, or documentation to substantiate the claim. While secondary sources frequently assign the date of 1400 or the fourteenth century to the incident, these dates are completely absent from the original 1844 account. No contemporary chronicles or legal records of such an event have ever been identified. Historians and psychologists generally treat the story as an anecdotal illustration of mass hysteria rather than a documented historical occurrence.
My mother’s notes on the margin of the 1844 photocopy are sparse, written in her characteristically neat black ink. She had underlined Babington’s reference to the unnamed “good medical work” three times. Beside it, she wrote: We call it hysteria when we cannot find the needle that pricked the first thread. But once the pattern starts, the cloth has no choice but to fold. Below that, she had typed a single, cryptic line: If the voice changes, is it still the same throat?
It is 02:57. The house has settled into its nightly stillness, though there is a faint, sharp scent of ozone in the air, like an electrical storm that refuses to break, or perhaps just the strain of this old terminal running in the corner. I can hear the high, thin whine of the modem warming up, its steady drone a small comfort in the dark. I need to get some sleep; the September heat tomorrow is supposed to be brutal again.
I am sending this to Lukas over the line. If it only exists here, it doesn’t exist.
>>> BEGIN CAPTURE FILE MASS_HYSTERIA/1400/MEO-305 SUBJECT: the meowing nun contagion --- narrative of mass psychogenic illness in a french convent. one nun began to meow like a cat. behavior spread to other nuns. daily structured cat concerts. ceased after authorities threatened whipping. no primary evidence exists. sole origin is 1844 translator note by Benjamin Guy Babington. published in English edition of J.F.C. Hecker. Babington cites unnamed "good medical work". no specific location, date, or documentation provided. dates of 1400 or 14th century absent from 1844 account. no contemporary chronicles or legal records found. --- M. NOTE: We call it hysteria when we cannot find the needle that pricked the first thread. But once the pattern starts, the cloth has no choice but to fold. >>> END CAPTURE