Just like with violent bunnies, it seems that artists were inexplicably obsessed with snails in medieval times. Knights were always fighting them in the margins of gothic manuscripts. And we think it is still a mystery why. Did snails represent something else or these artists were just trolling? Please leave comment if you have any idea.
(S)nailed it!
Snails were being sluggish and must be killed!
If the wild kitties don’t eat the food I set out for them the snails get it. It could be related to that.
The most convincing argument comes from medieval scholar Lillian Randall’s 1962 essay “The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare” (an argument echoed in Michael Camille’s book about marginal art, available here). Randall theorizes that these snails began as representation of the Lombards, a maligned group that rose to prominence as lenders in the late 1200s. From that original caricature, snails and knights became a trope in medieval marginal art. https://bit.ly/2SCTwIP