As the story goes, around 600 A.D. Pope Gregory the Great issued an edict declaring that rabbit fetuses, called laurices, were not meat but fish. This was significant because it meant they could be eaten during Lent, a Christian period of repentance in preparation for the Easter holiday. As a result, French monks supposedly rushed to collect this new food source and breed them within the monastery walls, where they eventually grew into the loveable critters we know today.
It’s a nice, neat tale of domestication. It also almost certainly never happened.
