Other theories that scholars, art historians, bloggers, and armchair medievalists have floated with regard to the symbolism of these rough and ready snails haunting the margins: knight motif disappeared in the 14th-century, only to resurface toward the end of the 15th, when any existing significance would very likely have been tailored to fit the times. Whatever point-or joke-the scribe was making, itвЂ™s been obscured by the mists of time.ДЄnd these things have a way of evolving. Let us remember that the doodles in medieval marginalia are editorial cartoons wrapped in enigmas, much as todayвЂ™s memes would seem, 800 years from now. Royal 10 IV E (aka the Smithfield Decretals ) Dolittle so unafraid of the Giant Pink Sea Snail?)Дetail from from MS.

Which rather begs the question why the knights going toe-to- вЂ¦uh, facing off against them in the margins of these illuminated manuscripts look so damn intimidated. Their profession conferred power of a sort, the kind that tends to get one labelled cowardly, greedy, malicious вЂ¦ and easy to put down. Randall, who found some 70 instances of man-on-snail combat in 29 manuscripts dating from the late 1200s to early 1300s, believed that the tiny mollusks were stand ins for the Germanic Lombards who invaded Italy in the 8th century.ДЄfter Charlemagne trounced the Lombards in 772, declaring himself King of Lombardy, the vanquished turned to usury and pawnbroking, earning the enmity of the rest of the populace, even those who required their services. RandallвЂ™s 1962 essay вЂњ The Snail in Gothic Marginal Warfare.вЂќ Boars, lions, and bears we can understand, but вЂ¦ snails? Why?Дetail from Brunetto LatiniвЂ™s Li Livres dou TresorД®dwards favors the one in medievalist Lilian M.

Medieval illustrated manuscripts