In the Middle Ages women and men often doted on their pets. In York Minster, there is a portrait of the lap dog of Lady Margaret Roos, rendered in stained glass. The dog looks happy and sleek, with a belled collar.
In the picture here of Tobias and Sara, a window of about 1520 from Cologne, the couple’s pet dog is a sleepy symbol of wedded tranquillity.
In other drawings of medieval pets, the British Library has a manuscript showing a woman with a pet squirrel while the Luttrell Psalter shows a collared pet squirrel as a sign of status.
Birds were also popular. Jays and magpies - called ‘pies’ - were kept in cages and taught to copy speech. Larks and nightingales were kept for their sweet songs.
