KNIGHTS FIGHTING SNAILS REVISITED. I am finishing 2016 with the same question with which I started the year. In response to a link Annalisa sent me, I started 2016 with this post about the large number of drawings of knights fighting snails in the margins of medieval manuscripts. I pointed out that medievalists have no idea of why images of knights fighting snails were so popular.
Recently Nick sent me a link to this item on IMGUR, featuring good pictures of knights fighting snails. There is still no explanation that has been agreed upon, but I do like two proposed explanations on the site: First, that monks who did the illustrations would have kept small gardens where they grew their own food and “this was their way of venting about the snails who were ruining their gardens.” Second, that “humanity defeated an invasion of snail aliens in the Middle Ages”.
Those two explanations work for me. I don’t know if there is any linguistic explanation, such that the snails are some sort of pun or representation of something else. I suppose they’re armored?