Even if you don’t geek out over illuminated manuscripts as much as I do, there’s a good chance that you will be entertained by the short video below. It’s likely that you’ve seen images from medieval manuscripts depicting both real and imaginary creatures in the margins. While these images may appear quite humorous to us, they often were symbolic representations of cultural and political issues of the times. In 1962, historian Lilian Randall published a book on the illustrations found in the margins of illuminated manuscripts. A section of the book, Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts , is highlighted in the video below which explores the surprising number of snails appearing inthese texts.

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