It was thus understandable that our kings, having to choose a symbolic image for what later became a coat of arms, set their minds on the iris, a flower that was common around their homes, and is also as beautiful as it was remarkable. Nowadays, this river is still bordered with an exceptional number of irises -as many plants grow for centuries in the same places-: these irises have yellow flowers, which is not a typical feature of lilies but fleurs-de-lis. What gives some colour of truth to this hypothesis that we already put forth, is the fact that the French or Franks, before entering Gaul itself, lived for a long time around the river named Lys in the Flanders. The old fleurs-de-lis, especially the ones found in our first kings' sceptres, have a lot less in common with ordinary lilies than the flowers called flambas, or irises, from which the name of our own fleur-de-lis may derive. According to Pierre-Augustin Boissier de Sauvages, an 18th-century French naturalist and lexicographer: Lily (in Italian: giglio) is the name usually associated with the stylized flower in the Florentine heraldic devices.ĭecorative ornaments that resemble the fleur-de-lis have appeared in artwork from the earliest human civilizations. However, the lily (genus Lilium, family Liliaceae) and the iris (family Iridaceae) are two different plants, phylogenetically and taxonomically unrelated. The fleur-de-lis is widely thought to be a stylized version of the species Iris pseudacorus, or Iris florentina. From the Bedford Hours in the British Library, London. 15th-century manuscript depicting an angel sending the fleurs-de-lis to Clovis.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |