4) The snails represent social climbers / poor vs rich Essentially, knights claim to be big and brave, but they only take on weak foe that they know they can beat, showing their true cowardice.Ī cowering jousting knight ( Li Livres dou Tresor, France, c. 1264).Ī naked man begging for mercy at a snail (Gorleston Psalter, England, 1310 – 1324).

Snails are obviously an unworthy foe for a brave knight, and Elizabeth Moore Hunt has suggested that “the natural baseness of the animal makes it unworthy prey for splendid jousting gear and thus a humorous parody of the knight in arms”.

Often in the pictures, the knights are shown as losing or cowering in terror. Rather than showing the brave knights fighting off an evil foe such as the Lombards, there is an idea that the snails vs knights motif is a humorous satire on the knightly class and the idea of chivalry. This time the snails are being ridden by naked jousters ( Lectura super Institutionibus, France, 1480 – 1481). However, many have questioned this theory, as explained by the British Library: this “does not explain why the knight is often depicted on the losing end of this battle, or why this particular image became so popular in the margins of non-historical texts such as Psalters or Books of Hours”. Placing them in marginalia serves as some xenophobic fun, and would account for why they are frequently shown fighting chivalrous knights – a sort of ‘good ideals vs bad ideals’. 13 th century), the Lombards were an unpopular group in Europe, with the view that they monopolised jobs, lent money at unreasonable rates, and were overall a treasonous, sinning, un-chivalrous bunch. By the time that the snail marginalia start to become frequent (c. Historian Lilian Randall has suggested that the snails represent the Lombards, a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774 AD. This leads to the suggestion that the valorous knights are fighting the “wicked” who will eventually meet their just punishment. This is discussing the punishment of the wicked, saying “let them be like a snail which melts away as it goes, Like a stillborn child of a woman, that they may not see the sun”. This led Comte to theorise that the snails must represent the Resurrection – the two images must be linked.Īnother suggestion tied to death comes from medievalist Lisa Spangenberg, who highlights another Biblical connection – Psalm 58. He noticed that in two manuscripts there were marginal snails very close to miniatures of the Raising of Lazarus (for those not aware, this is a Biblical story where Jesus brings Lazarus of Bethany back to life four days after his burial). One of the first people to pick up on the strange addition of snails to manuscripts was Comte de Bastard in 1850. 1) The snails represent death/the Resurrection It contains the first recorded use of the phrase “red herring” to mean a diversion, as well as an alliterative nonsense verse – very rare in Middle English – titled The Battle of Brakonwet, in which Robin Hood parties with musical bumblebees and foxes.Knight with a club fighting against a huge snail (Smithfield Decretals, southern France, c.

So how did the text go ignored for so long? According to Wade, it’s because we simply weren’t looking for it: previous study of the manuscript had mostly focused on how it was made, he explained, rather than appreciating the comedy stylings found within.Īnd yet the find is not only important for its insight into medieval stand-up – it also has some other, more literary claims to fame. “He didn’t give himself the kind of repetition or story trajectory which would have made things simpler to remember.” “It’s a comedy feast.”īut that made it difficult to commit entirely to memory, he added. “These texts … serve up everything from the satirical, ironic, and nonsensical to the topical, interactive and meta-comedic,” he explained.

Medieval manuscript art snails