Director of Cats

The Director of Cats (貓令, mraw-ringh) is an officer of the Themiclesian civil service. His department is concerned with the maintenance of cats in the royal palace; most cats are pets to the monarch, but certain cats were also salaried and appointed to administrative offices, specifically during the reign of Emperor 'Ei-tsung of the Ntrjen Dynasty. After this reign, offices staffed by cats were returned to human occupation, but the Director of Cats was retained. No cat was ever appointed as Director of Cats.

Organization

Note: offices filled with cats are in italics.

• Director of Cats (貓令, mraw-ringh)
  • Secretary of Cats (貓丞, mraw-djêng)
  • Cat Secretary of State (貓尚書, mraw-djang-st'ja)
  • Cat Royal Attendant (貓侍中, mraw-mlji-trjung)
  • Cat Gentlemen-in-Waiting (貓郎中, mraw-rang-trjung)
  • Administrator of Cat Premises (貓署長, mraw-dja-drjang)
  • Administrator of Cat Retinues (宦貓長, gwranh-mraw-drjang)
  • Administrator of Cat Furniture (貓內者長, mraw-nubh-tja-drjang)
  • Administrator of Cat Treasury (貓私府長, mraw-sji-pjo-drjang)
  • Administrator of Cat Cuisine (貓大官長, mraw-ladh-kwar-drjang)

History

Cats were appointed to a variety of offices in 'ei-tsung's reign

The first Director of Cats was appointed by Emperor 'Ei-tsung in 1386, only a few months after the Menghean forces retreated from Kien-k'ang. The capital city was under siege for a year and seven months. The government, unable to raise reinforcements, as all communication with the outside was severed, sued for peace. The Menghean general required 'Ei-tsung to surrender his title of "emperor" and pay tribute to Menghe. Desperate for peace, the Council of Correspondence forced 'Ei-tsung's hand in late 1385 to agree to an annual tribute mission to Menghe, which satisfied the Menghean general. Incensed at his ministers' defeatism, 'Ei-tsung motivated the Tribunes to investigate several leading ministers for malfeasance, eventually leading to their resignation. According to private diaries, 'Ei-tsung ordered their positions filled with his pet cats to show contempt for the ministers who last occupied those positions.

Soon, however, the Tribunes turned on 'Ei-tsung and countermanded his edict, saying there was no precedent of appointing non-humans or those without qualifications to ministerial positions. He resorted to creating a parallel bureaucracy filled with cats. The Tribunes were unable to block this act, since the Emperor was permitted (with the assent of the Council of Protonotaries pending) to create new offices, whose appointees were not constrained by precedents in qualifications. To add insult to injury, the Emperor declared his ministerial cats would receive the same salary as human ministers, only the denomination was to be in dried fish, rather than bushels of grain. As such, a Cat Secretary of State received 2,000 bundles of dried fish per annum, as an actual Secretary of State received 2,000 bushels of grain.

This farce continued throughout his 40-year reign (1381 – 1422), and the tendency to exalt cats over humans only intensified during the middle and latter parts of his reign. In 1394, he ordered that all documents bound for the Council of Correspondence be marked as sent to "human secretaries of state" (上人尚書), to distinguish them from the cat secretaries of state (上貓尚書). Whenever officials remonstrated him for his absurd actions, he asked them to contemplate their places "before the ancestral temples". Since 'Ei-tsung surrendered his title as emperor before open court in 1385, the degredation was assumed to carry over to his ancestors, venerated in temples; he invoked his officials' inability to prevent the humiliation of his ancestors as defences against their remonstration.

However, 'Ei-tsung was powerless to alter his country's political structure, and despite the farce in the inner court, there were few disturbances that resulted beyond it. Despite the royal favours that 'Ei-tsung had lavished on his human ministers that cared for his cats, their political power did not grow detectably; historians sometimes conclude thus that 'Ei-tsung did not truly wish to disrupt Themiclesia's governance and, by and large, still respected the institutions that he despised. In 1423, 'Ei-tsung died childless at the age of 60. His successor piloted a series of statutes that officially removed the cats appointed as officials. However, the human office that took care of cats was retained, and a "litter of a thousand cats" remains a fixture at the Themiclesian court.

See also

• Themiclesia
• Menghe