Medieval Snails Cocktail Napkins bychantal_pare

Snails are peaceful, non-aggressive animals that for a 20 year period between 1290 and 1310 were often depicted floating above a belligerent knight in full regalia. Less frequently the knight had put down his sword and knelt in front of the snail. Even more rarely, a nearly naked humble man was praying to the snail. Even bishops were shown having conversations with snails as if with an equal. There were at the time several sectarian movements that repudiated the concept of war, or "just war," and longed to return to a more peaceful Christian philosophy, for instance the Cathars and the Waldesians. These people were considered heretics by the Catholic church, and were burned alive and massacred. No one knows why monks illustrated the books they copied with knights fighting snails. Was it silent support for these peace-loving sects? We will never know, as the monks never revealed the meaning of it.