Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/21/medieval-molluscs.html
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Bunnies too.
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I always thought marginal illustrations were sort of the memes of their time and media. It’s actually kind of cool to see them get circulated on Twitter.
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I knew medieval monks had done this, but I had no idea they had engaged in doodling near the bb offices!
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You think taking hundreds of years to make the news is slow?
They’re snails…
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If they represent knights fighting a deity, I can understand that, as Any God is a prodigious underachiever, being by nature indecisive and glacially slow to take any action at all, if at all, leaving us bio-beings to our mostly-futile struggles. What the hell is It for anyway? Don’t answer that.
Maybe the illustrations are an expression of frustration in the only manner available.
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Wow, look at that escargot.
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I’ve got a theory for why there’s so many pics of knights fighting snails. Even back then, snails were probably were symbolic for being slow. A slow knight was a dead knight. Thus the knight had to battle with his own tendency to slow down in order to survive. Else, the snail would win.
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You snailed it.
Is it possible that margin snails was a way for monks to show their disdain for knights and perhaps – in the view of the monks – to illustrate some undeserved reputation for chivalry? I doubt that monks (coming from all classes of families) by and large were treated well by knights (nobility class).
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I get the rabbits thing, rabbits are featured regularly in folktales, but is/was there significance to the snaileos?
Btw, the unicorn thing with the uncoiled shell looks like a representation of Capricorn?
And, in his thread, the “whatever it is” looks like a weird cephalopod? but it’s from the Luttrell Psalter, which has many composite creatures:
https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/introduction.html#content
I’ve thought this before.
I’m certain you’re correct.
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Imma just leave this here…
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