diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 11b655a..fae8b2d 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -112,12 +112,17 @@ Error handling
 When Mastodon.py encounters an error, it will raise an exception, generally with
 some text included to tell you what went wrong. 
 
+The base class that all mastodon exceptions inherit from is the MastodonError
+class. If you are only interested in the fact an error was raised somewhere in
+Mastodon.py, and not the details, this is the exception you can catch.
+
 MastodonIllegalArgumentError is generally a programming problem - you asked the 
 API to do something obviously invalid (i.e. specify a privacy scope that does
 not exist).
 
 MastodonFileNotFoundError and MastodonNetworkError are IO errors - could be you
-specified a wrong URL, could be the internet is down or your hard drive is dying.
+specified a wrong URL, could be the internet is down or your hard drive is
+dying. They inherit from MastodonIOError, for easy catching.
 
 MastodonAPIError is an error returned from the Mastodon instance - the server
 has decided it can't fullfill your request (i.e. you requested info on a user that
diff --git a/mastodon/Mastodon.py b/mastodon/Mastodon.py
index 49db771..8634fd1 100644
--- a/mastodon/Mastodon.py
+++ b/mastodon/Mastodon.py
@@ -1280,21 +1280,29 @@ class Mastodon:
 ##
 # Exceptions
 ##
-class MastodonIllegalArgumentError(ValueError):
+class MastodonError(Exception):
+    """Base class for Mastodon.py exceptions"""
+
+
+class MastodonIllegalArgumentError(ValueError, MastodonError):
     pass
 
 
-class MastodonFileNotFoundError(IOError):
+class MastodonIOError(IOError, MastodonError):
+    """Base class for Mastodon.py I/O errors"""
+
+
+class MastodonFileNotFoundError(MastodonIOError):
     pass
 
 
-class MastodonNetworkError(IOError):
+class MastodonNetworkError(MastodonIOError):
     pass
 
 
-class MastodonAPIError(Exception):
+class MastodonAPIError(MastodonError):
     pass
 
 
-class MastodonRatelimitError(Exception):
+class MastodonRatelimitError(MastodonError):
     pass