Above is a curious and captivating of two nude jousters — male and female(?) — on snails. This is from the Baldus de Ubaldis. Lectura super Institutionibus. 1480-1481. The best part of this image is that it remains an utter mystery as to what sort of allagorical or rhetorical meaning they were trying to express by placing jousting snails in the marginalia. (Most of the images are of armored knights and this is the only one I’ve ever seen of two nude firghters moving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y toward each other. I did some internet checking and found this hilarious scholarly debate about the jousting snails. (It reads like something from a Monty Python sketch) And here too — another attempt at a scholarly debate/discussion what the hell were those monks thinking!
5 thoughts on “Jousting Snails: A Medieval Martial Art”
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That Norwegian one – Brrr. Makes me phobic about going out to shovel more snow today.
Greetings from your cousin in Kansas City. (*I’m writing here because its fast & easy and I know you’ll get it.*) I will be in Tucson for a few days next week. Are you interested in lunch say, next Thursday or Friday? —
FYI: I just found that Pierre made an illustration of a creole author for the (rare) book “Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles” by William Spratling & William Faulkner (1926). I don’t know which writer he drew. It was reprinted in facsimile with the illustrations 5 years ago by Kessinger for the Univ. of Texas. I just ordered it tonight from Amazon.com ($14.36 in paperback). You might want to check it out. — Best regards.
I don’t know if it’s relevant to these snails, but there’s a wonderful 13th-century anonymous Latin satiric poem in which a Lombard fights a snail, with inconclusive results. The goal appears to have been to perpetuate a stereotype about the cowardice of Lombards, but the snail’s purpose is unknown—although it’s worth pondering what a pain they must have been to medieval farmers and gardeners.
(Discovered you via Marly Youmans! I have a copy of The Innamorati, and I’m hoping to find time to read it soon…)
Hi Earl! Yes give me a call! You will get a chance to meet the newest member of the clan Beatrice! The 11th or 12th is fine with me. Let me email you my phone number. And thanks for the heads up about the book!
Hi Jeff, thanks for stopping by! I am fascinated by all the strange and wonderfully weird depictions of jousting snails — as well the strange hybrids of half snail with half something else — like a stag, or a rabbit, emerging from the shell. The theories as to meaning are pretty wide flung, from sexual inuendo (amour) to symbolizing the armoured knight. Sometimes I think the jousting snails and snail variations are the medieval equivalent of emojis — all those monks and artists expressing themselves in visual shorthand.