{"product_id":"introducing-the-medieval-snail","title":"Introducing the Medieval Snail","description":"When one thinks about medieval animals, snails rarely come to mind. Just as history has long had its biases, so has the study of animals – both have long focused on the ‘crowned heads’. A focus on the seemingly insignificant, on the small and the frail, offers a fresh point of view. This book studies the uses and representations of medieval snails, spanning material culture, medicine and gastronomy as well as a great variety of texts and images – taking into consideration bestiaries, sermons, poems and insults, as well as marginalia, sculpture, paintings and painted ceilings. Observing the Middle Ages from the viewpoint of a snail can be surprising, and lead us to delve into material everyday life as well as the core of culture-building. This study concludes with a novel reading of the famed ‘snail-combat motif’, in which a knight cowers faced with a ferocious mollusc, making a connection between Gothic marginalia and a new, most malleable cultural expression: the meme.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495312892277,"sku":"9781837723720","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/introducing-the-medieval-snail","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}