Why Armed Rabbits Appeared So Often in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts

Peter Austin explores the bizarre phenomenon of armed rabbits being featured so heavily in Medieval illuminated manuscripts over several centuries. He explained that these bizarre, deadly bunnies and killer snails are known as drolleries, which are often featured in Medieval art memes.

All such absurd illustrations found within illuminated manuscripts are known as grotesques or drolleries, a term derive from the same root word from which we get the modern adjective droll, as in whimsically amusing …So, one major category of drollery humor is the world turned upside down, a disruption of the natural order, or a subversion of expectations.

Austin also notes that the choice of bunnies and snails was purposeful, as these are pretty benign creatures.

The joke isn’t simply that any old animal is picking a fight with a human. it wouldn’t work as well if it was a lion or a bear. It’s that these particular animals are ones that were at the time so often on the receiving end of human violence, persecuted for their destruction of crops and even eaten by certain members of the population.

via Miss Cellania