Fighting the Snail: How Medieval People Thought

A great book on the subject is C.S. Lewis's The Discarded Image, portraying the medieval conception of a "model" of the world, which Lewis described as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organisation of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe."

From One Peter Five

By Robert Lazu Kmita

Recently, an excellent article by Mr. Robert Keim, a passionate historian of medieval culture, caught my attention. Entitled “The War between Knights and Snails” and published on his Substack channel Via Mediaevalis,[1] the essay was dedicated to one of the mysterious drawings found in illuminated manuscripts—an image depicting a battle between armored knights and… snails. Yes, you read that right: warriors armed to the teeth are shown charging—most often with a lance, more rarely with a sword—against a snail that helplessly contemplates the calamity that has befallen it. What could be the meaning of such a strange artistic representation?

After reviewing several modern interpretations proposed by various authors, Robert Keim sets out to unravel the mystery of the snail using the hermeneutical “glasses” specific to Christians of the Middle Ages. These “glasses” have as their main lens an axiom stated by our author:

(…) medieval symbolism derived from the belief—and a mind-opening, life-transforming belief it is—that physical realities are primarily symbolic, and that their observable features were chosen for symbolic purposes by the eternal and all-knowing God.

This is a crucial statement that describes the core of Medieval man’s belief in the symbolic value of nature and its contents. In other words, every creature is a sign through which God Himself teaches us something valuable and precious. Of course, none of these “signs” are accessible to minds lacking Wisdom. And Wisdom cannot be attained without humility. But humility can be received as an invaluable gift only if we accept that everything has been created by a Divine Mind infinitely superior to our own human, created minds. If we accept this, the Holy Ghost Himself takes upon Him the responsibility to guide and teach us the deep and hidden meanings of creatures, things, and words.

Before returning to Robert Keim’s article and to the symbolism of the battle with the snail, I will add just one more aspect related to the content of his quotation above. When Keim says that the “observable features” of creatures have a symbolic dimension, this statement implies that absolutely all creatures—even the most insignificant ones—conceal divine reasons that represent God’s thought or plan regarding their transcendent purpose. Every being or thing in nature has a divine reason—called by Saint Maximus the Confessor the lógos (from the Greek λόγος) of that particular creature. And the origin of all the created logoi is the supreme Logos Himself—Christ the Savior, that is, Divine Wisdom itself.

Thus, from eternity, God has conceived the meaning, value, and ultimate purpose of every creature. When we make the effort to discover or decipher within a creature the divine reason through which God teaches us something, we are reading the book of Nature, which, together with the sacred texts of the Bible, is meant to guide us toward the eternal Kingdom of Heaven. That is what we shall do right now—seeking to decipher the meaning of the mysterious drawing of knights fighting snails.

Robert Keim’s Interpretation

Let us first look at the interpretation proposed by Robert Keim. He carefully observes the drawings, which indeed seem to reveal an important detail: the horns that bear the snails’ eyes are directed toward the knights, resembling spears. The same detail was noted by medieval art historian Dr. Lilian M. C. Randall, quoted in Keim’s text:

The most common form of representation shows a knight armed with mace or sword confronting a snail whose horns are extended and often pointed like arrows.

Indeed, when looking at such drawings, one might naturally wonder how snails could defend themselves against attackers. What better answer could there be than suggesting that the horns are used like arrows? How else could a snail defend itself? Obviously, this is an unrealistic answer, valid only for an illustration. In reality, a snail has no means of defense other than retreating into its shell.

Remembering childhood moments when I used to delight in seeing how quickly snails retract their tiny horned eyes when you touch them lightly with your finger, I smiled as I read Robert’s explanation. Keim draws a parallel between the snails’ arrow-like eyes and the horns of demons in traditional iconography. He then poses — rhetorically — the question that reveals the essence of his interpretation:

A horned, (spiritually) blind creature that confronts, and even defeats, the chivalrous warriors of Christendom? That sounds like the devil to me. Horns are integral to the entire history of iconographic representation of Satan, insofar as they were inherited from the goat-horned pagan god Pan.

A number of other drawings from medieval illuminated manuscripts, where horned snails appear somewhat sinister, seem to support the interpretation that associates snails with infernal beings—demons. Yet, there may be more to it than that. Especially if we learn from a short but erudite note — “The Virgin Snail” by Helen S. Ettlinger — that far from bearing only negative symbolic connotations, the snail can also have remarkable symbolic meanings.

In a work by Dominican friar Francis of Retz (c. 1343–1427) titled Defensorium inviolatae virginitatis Mariae, Ettlinger discovered the following statement:

If the dew of the clear air can make the sea snail pregnant, then God in virtue can make His mother pregnant.[2]

Thus, the snail is, no more and no less, an analogical symbol of the Holy Virgin Mary. A similar interpretation of great importance, mentioned by Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1871–1946) in his monumental Le Bestiaire du Christ (The Bestiary of Christ, 1940),[3] shows that toward the end of the Middle Ages, some artists associated the snail with the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ—as in certain Western interpretations where the snail symbolizes regeneration, resurrection or rebirth.[4]

So here we have two interpretations in which the snail is associated both with the second Person of the Holy Trinity—the incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ—and with the Queen of the Universe, the Holy Virgin Mary. How, then, could such a small creature acquire negative, demonic connotations like those implied in the interpretation of the knight’s battle with the snail? It seems we are faced with a contradiction that deserves serious consideration.

When I read Robert Keim’s article, I was immediately struck by memories of earlier readings in which the symbolism of the snail had been thoroughly discussed—though not in connection with illuminated manuscript drawings, but with the coat of arms of a Georgian-born hierarch who lived in Wallachia.

The Coat of Arms of Metropolitan Antim Ivireanul and the Ambiguity of Snails

Antim Ivireanul (c.1640–1716) was a tireless scholar and polyglot who, as Orthodox Metropolitan of Bucharest (today the capital of Romania), carried out extensive work as a writer, translator, librarian, editor, and printer of works now considered gems of Romanian literature. Given that he also published the famous medieval Italian anthology the Fiore di virtù (The Flower of Virtue), it is clear that we are dealing with an Eastern hierarch open to Western Catholic tradition. His interest in Western heraldic sources is also evident from the fact that he placed his mitre beneath a galero—a cardinal’s hat—a detail that itself would merit deeper investigation.[5]

What interests us here, however, is that the central figure on Antim Ivireanul’s coat of arms is a snail.

(Figure 1 – darkened)

Above the entrance to Antim Monastery—built between 1713 and 1715—there is a depiction of a snail said to have been sculpted by the Metropolitan himself, known for his many artistic talents. Moreover, an old account says that the key to that church door was also snail-shaped. All these details, together with his coat of arms, testify to the importance Antim attributed to the snail. But what symbolic meaning did he ascribe to this tiny creature?

Over the past decades, several authors have tried to decipher this mystery. The most interesting interpretation belongs to Father André Scrima (1925–2000). In an essay titled Timpul Rugului Aprins (The Time of the Burning Bush), he sees the image of the snail as a “graphic metaphor of the monk’s cell:”

In the representation intended by Antim, the cell, like the snail’s shell, is itinerant—it accompanies you everywhere (unlike the ‘stationary’ building where you spent your novitiate). If at first the monk was ‘in the cell,’ now the cell has been interiorized: it is ‘in the monk.’ Do we perhaps glimpse here an almost autobiographical confession from the founder nearing the end of his earthly pilgrimage? In any case, the dialectical coherence of the symbol as presented suggests a rhythm of withdrawal (‘into yourself’) and reappearance (‘outward’).[6]

Thus, just as the snail withdraws into and emerges from its shell, the monk’s life is characterized by withdrawal and concealment from the world, interrupted—through the ordinances of Divine Providence—by brief returns to it. This dialectical movement between interiority and exteriorization, according to Scrima, is the key to interpreting the heraldic snail—and perhaps even more than that.

A second noteworthy detail is the six-pointed star toward which the snail on the coat of arms extends its antennae. Formed by two interlaced triangles—representing the intersection of the “visible” and “invisible” worlds from the Christian Creed—this star, the famous Clavicula Salomonis, would be the goal toward which, emerging from the spiral labyrinth of his monastic shell, the contemplative monk aspires in the practice of mental prayer, known in Eastern Christianity as the “prayer of the heart.”

Personally, the most interesting detail in André Scrima’s interpretation is a quatrain from the 1972 critical edition dedicated to Antim Ivireanul:

All creation, says the prophet,
Sing to the Lord in every place.
And even the snail, its horns upraised,
Teaches us all to praise His grace.[7]

This small poem presents the snail as an unintentional teacher of adoration. Paraphrasing King and Psalmist David, Antim alludes to those Old Testament verses emphasizing the implicit praise all creatures—no matter how insignificant—offer to their Creator. The snail, by raising its horns toward heaven, is like a pious monk lifting his hands to the Most High. It is quite significant that this learned author chose precisely this tiny creature, especially within the Romanian cultural context, where the snail has always had a positive connotation.

“I know of no belief in which the snail is attributed with harmful powers,” writes one of the most renowned modern researchers, Mihai Coman.[8] The question remains, then: how is it that in the illuminated manuscripts that captured Robert Keim’s attention, the snail appears as a malevolent creature, worthy of being attacked by knights?

Another Possible Interpretation

Unlike us modern city dwellers, medieval people undoubtedly had a broader and more precise knowledge of all living creatures. The specific traits of each species were clearly understood, and their symbolic interpretations were based on these features. Yet, animal symbolism often carried ambiguity—because what was interpreted was not the animal itself, but one of its particular traits, and that depended on context. Saint Maximus the Confessor, following Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, emphasized that the symbolic interpretation of creatures in Holy Scripture is always contextual.

For example, the lion can symbolize—through its mighty, sharp teeth—the devil, who tears apart the faith of his victims through heresies and false teachings. Saint Peter is clear about this, warning us to defend true doctrine against the devil “as a roaring lion, [who] goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Yet the same majestic animal, because of its courage and royal bearing, can symbolize kingship itself—and not just any kingship, but that of Jesus Christ, explicitly called in the Book of Revelation “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” (Revelation 5:5). Thus, the same creature can symbolize both the negative pole of creation—the devil, who seeks to tear apart the Church through schism and heresy—and, in another context, the second person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son.

In the case of the knight’s battle with the snail, as presented by Robert Keim, it is clear we are dealing with a negative instance of the small creature. The demonic interpretation is indeed plausible: the snail’s horns can easily recall the devil’s. Yet there is another complementary possibility, suggested by André Scrima’s interpretation of the snail’s shell. Looking at Rembrandt’s famous painting Philosopher in Meditation (1632), one immediately perceives the sense of inward deepening—while the shell, as a dwelling place from which the snail eventually disappears at death, may represent our fallen, labyrinthine world. The idea I draw from contemplating a shell is, therefore, that of the labyrinth—the loss of oneself in the world.

Moreover, as mentioned earlier, medieval people based their interpretations on traits they observed directly in nature, unmediated by electronic devices and digital screens.

The snail has one obvious and striking characteristic: its slowness. It barely moves. It seems almost dead rather than alive, for everything about it happens in extreme slow motion. Reflecting on this most visible trait, the vice it most readily evokes is laziness—or even acedia, spiritual sloth. Medieval depictions showing not only knights but also peasants or craftsmen fighting snails seem to confirm the presence of a universal vice—one that had to be confronted by all, regardless of social class. In this context, we may recall the teaching of Saint Mark the Ascetic, who described the three great demonic giants that constantly attack us as ignorance (of the sacred), forgetfulness (of God), and spiritual laziness.[9]

So, let us say we accept the identification of the snail with laziness or, worse, with acedia (which, for both the Desert Fathers and medieval monks and nuns, was the most terrible of all vices). But what does the knight signify? Or the woman who sometimes appears trying to prevent the attack on the snail?

We cannot answer such a question without first recalling another principle of allegorical-symbolic interpretation, present in leading pagan, Jewish, and Christian authors such as Plato, Philo, and Saint Ambrose. In short, this principle affirms that living beings or animals can symbolize, in certain contexts, internal principles of the human soul.

Concerned with the destiny of the soul in eternity, Plato left us, through his dialogues, the testimony of an extraordinary effort to recover a state that we, as Christians, might identify with that of Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall. Of all the dialogues, probably very few contain such a detailed investigation of the soul as Politeia (usually wrongly translated as The Republic). Here we find an extensive discussion of the ways in which we can purify ourselves from the metaphysical ignorance in which we are held captive in our current condition. This discussion gave rise, through Boethius and Martianus Capella, among others, to the sum of those disciplines—grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music—grouped under the famous name septem artes liberales (the seven liberal arts).

However, the essence of Politeia lies in the detailed description of the soul and its current state, which resulted from a mysterious ontological mutation whose origin Plato never discusses explicitly in any dialogue. Among the deeply significant images of man, one appears in the final part of the dialogue, in passages 588b–588e, where the soul is described as a whole containing three distinct beings. The first, the truly rational one—symbolizing the mind—is man himself. The second, symbolized by the lion, represents the spirited or irascible part of the soul. Finally, the third, described simultaneously as serpent-like and having many heads, is the monster that signifies the appetitive, desire-driven part of the soul. Thus, three different beings—the man, the lion, and the many-headed beast—joined together represent the human soul and all its “powers.”

In one of his most famous treatises, De opificio mundi (On the Creation of the Cosmos), Philo of Alexandria (c.20 BCE–c.50 CE) offers an interpretation of Adam and Eve’s original sin, starting from the premise that this reprehensible act is the universal archetype of every sin ever committed by any human being at any moment in history. According to this view, Adam and Eve can be interpreted symbolically and allegorically as the first two humans in history who, being at the same time true universal archetypes of all humanity, represent certain faculties of the human soul. Thus, Adam symbolizes the rational part of the soul—the intellect (Greek νοῦς – noûs), while Eve symbolizes sensation or emotion (Greek αἴσθησις – aisthēsis).

Saint Ambrose of Milan read Philo’s treatises with great interest and, in some cases, adopted the same interpretations. In his symbolic-allegorical commentary on Genesis, De Paradiso (On Paradise), Saint Augustine’s master identifies Adam with the mind or reason (Latin mentem) and Eve with sensation or sensibility (Latin sensum). In other words, he translated Philo of Alexandria’s interpretation into his own theological framework, following it faithfully.

From all these three interpretations—to which many others could be added—we can now deduce the principle mentioned earlier: the beings involved—the man, the lion, and the many-headed monster in Plato; Adam and Eve in Philo and Ambrose—each represent a dominant principle within the human soul. Could we, then, apply the same kind of interpretation to the images in illuminated medieval manuscripts showing knights attacking snails? I strongly believe we can. Here is what such an interpretation might look like.

The key characters are two: the attacker (usually, though not always, a knight) and the attacked (the snail). The first could symbolize that human being restored by grace, whom Saint Paul calls “the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth” (Ephesians 4:24). The snail, on the other hand—a symbol of sloth and acedia—may well represent “the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error” (Ephesians 4:22). Of course, this struggle concerns not only knights but every baptized Christian.

In some depictions, a third figure appears: a woman who seems to try to stop the assault on the “beast.” Could she not, as in Philo and Saint Ambrose, symbolize precisely the sensitive part of the soul—the one attached to earthly pleasures, which always seeks to temper the ascetic and spiritual impulses of Christians? Very likely, yes.

Thus, this would be the symbolic-allegorical interpretation I propose as a complement to Robert Keim’s reading. On the other hand, I think it is worth emphasizing and remembering not only the meaning of such medieval representations but also the restrained humor with which the anonymous masters who created them enriched their works. For we must always remember that the extraordinary culture that produced so many wonders—among them the Gothic castles and cathedrals—was not only one of labor and seriousness but also of the joy and cheerfulness of those who firmly believed that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to all who know the path of humility and repentance. This was, indeed, a thought not at all foreign to Saint Philip Neri!

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[1] Robert Keim, “The War between Knights and Snails:” https://viamediaevalis.substack.com/p/the-war-between-knights-and-snails [Accessed: 20 October 2025].

[2] Helen Ettlinger, “The Virgin Snail,” in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Volume 41, Number 1, 1978, p. 316. Ettlinger’s note is presented and discussed by Patricia Simons in her article “Salience and the Snail: Liminality and Incarnation in Francesco del Cossa’s Annunciation (c. 1470),” included in the anthology edited by Jennifer Spinks and Dagmar Eichberger, Religion, the Supernatural and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe. An Album Amicorum for Charles Zika, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2015, pp. 305-329. The interpretation of snails in Renaissance painting proposed by Simons also deserves a separate discussion just like that of Robert Keim’s reference author, Lilian Randall.

[3] Louis Charbonneau-Lassay, Le Bestiaire du Christ, Milano: Arché, 1985, p. 929.

[4] Ivan Evseev, Enciclopedia Simbolurilor Religioase și Arhetipurilor Culturale (Encyclopedia of Religious Symbols and Cultural Archetypes), Timișoara: Învierea Publishing House, 2007, pp. 364-365.

[5] Did this mean that he equated his position as metropolitan with that of Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church? In any case, it is certain that the representation of the cardinal’s hat was a clear sign of his interest in the Western, Catholic, heraldic-allegorical tradition.

[6] André Scrima, Timpul Rugului Aprins. Maestrul Spiritual în Tradiția Răsăriteană (The Time of the Burning Bush. The Spiritual Master in the Eastern Tradition), București: Humanitas Publishing House, 1996, pp. 124-125.

[7] Antim Ivireanul, Opere (Works), Critical edition and introductory study by Gabriel Ștrempel, Bucureşti: Minerva Publishing House, 1972, p. 325, apud André Scrima, op. cit., p. 126, note 11.

[8] Mihai Coman, “Melcul” (“Snail”), in Mitologie Populară Românească (Romanian Folk Mythology), Volumul I: Vieţuitoarele pământului şi ale apei (Tome I: Creatures of the Earth and Water), București: Minerva Publishing House, 1986, p. 209.

[9] For many details see “Three Deadly Giants and How to Fight Them:” https://kmitalibrary.substack.com/p/three-deadly-giants-and-how-to-fight [Accessed: 20 October 2025].