Reflection on the enrichment of double categories

Enrichment and internal categories are two different way to generalize the notion of category. As such, enriching double categories (which are categories internal to Cat) is not a clear concepts. One can look at the internal categories of the category of C-enriched categories or the internal C-category in Cat. This concepts, unfortunately, are not powerful enough, even thin (posetal) double categories can’t be seen this way. However, an orthogonal investigation, that of the enrichment by a double category, will help relaxing the internal C-category to a incorporate the internal categories of the category of C-enriched categories, as well as thin double categories or framed bicategories.