Religious Satire Maybe? Certainly Stumped Me

This Latin language forum has someone posting an identical medal, with the discussion of the translation for the Latin and the Biblical story the obverse imagery and text are based on: Balaam and his donkey. It is the donkey who is saying, "Quid me verberas?" (Why do you strike me?).

The translation of the text on the spider-web side is trickier and has considerable debate over there; my own take on it would be something like "The lightweight webs they weave will not catch eagles".

It is indeed a religious propaganda medal, clearly and strongly anti-Catholic in its message; on the obverse, the Pope (the Catholic church) is striking the donkey (the persecuted Protestants) when all the donkey is trying to do is stop the Pope from encountering the angel, who is standing ready to destroy him in judgement.

The "spiderwebs do not catch eagles" text and imagery fits well with the theory espoused over there, that the medal was made by or for French Protestants (the eagles) who had escaped France (the spiderweb) and found refuge in Germany. Estimated to date from the reign of Louis XIV of France (1643-1715). There is apparently a silver version of this medal in the ANS collection, though the link to the page for it currently seems to be broken; you can still see a tiny picture of it on the ANS search page.

Thanks so much for that Sap, I seem to be getting quite a few of these satirical items at the moment with a pair of the four headed pope and cardinal medals and recently a small silver one with what seems to be the Sultan of Turkey that reverses to the devil, I will post a pic of this soon.

Thanks again

John