The Fleur-de-lis
Stained glass window in the shape of a fleur-de-lys,
Bourges cathedral, 15th c. Note the various
themes: the Trinity, which the 3 petals were understood to recall, is represented;
angels are bearing the shield as they are supporters of the arms of France,
the dove descending from heaven recalls the legend of the baptism of Clovis
when a dove brought the sacred ointment to Saint Remigius.
The origin of the fleur de lis has been debated for centuries. There
are a number of inter-related questions with respect to the fleur-de-lis:
- what is the origin of the design which we know by that name?
- how old is it, and when was it first adopted by the kings of France?
- why did they adopt it?
- what is a fleur-de-lys: that is, to what flower or real object does
it correspond?
- where does the name itself come from?
This article provides answers and clues. My personal opinion is as follows:
- the design can be found in many places long before heraldic times,
as far back as Mesopotamia. It is essentially a stylized flower, and served
as a decorative element and became associated over time with royalty, especially
in the High Middle Ages.
- As a heraldic charge, it dates from the 12th c. It is first adopted
as a semis on a field by the French king Philippe II (1180-1214) with certainty,
perhaps already by his father Louis VII (1137-80). At a minimum, the arms
"azure, a semis of fleur-de-lis or" are associated with French
kings from 1200.
- the fleur-de-lys, as emblem (as opposed to heraldic charge) appears
on coins and seals from the 10th c. at least. Typically, it forms the end
of a scepter, or decorates the rim of a crown, or is held, over-sized,
by the king along with a scepter. So there is, by the 11th-12th c., a strong
association with royal sovereignty. In fact, coins of the Emperor Frederic
I show him holding such a scepter. Moreover, supposing that it was already
called a fleur-de-lys at the time, the lily flower had strong religious
connotations, especially with the Virgin Mary, and later (in the 14th c.)
with the Trinity.
Seal of Philip II Augustus, king of France, 1180.
Legend: Philippus Dei gratia Francorum rex".
From the French Ministry of Culture's
Banques d'images CARIM.
- what it is, or initially was, is hotly debated. I dismiss all non-floral
origins as fanciful. It is a stylized flower, but which flower? It looks
more like an iris than a lily. Moreover, lillies are never yellow in the
wild, whereas some irises are. Could there have been confusion between
the two flowers? The word "lis" appears in French in 1150, whereas
the word "iris" designates the flower in the 13th c. The term
"fleur de lis" in the heraldic sense is attested in 1225. A confusion
seems implausible.
- However, a hypothesis ventured in the 17th c. sounds very plausible
to me. One species of wild iris, the Iris pseudacorus, yellow flag in English,
is yellow and grows in marshes (cf. the azure field, for water). Its name
in German is Lieschblume (also gelbe Schwertlilie), but Liesch was also
spelled Lies and Leys in the Middle Ages. It is easy to imagine that, in
Northern France, the Lieschblume would have been called "fleur-de-lis."
This would explain the name and the formal origin of the design, as a stylized
yellow flag. There is a fanciful legend about Clovis which links the yellow
flag explicitly with the French coat of arms.
A bonus of this theory is that the yellow flag is also called "flambe"
or "flamme" in old French, which links it very nicely to the
oriflamme.
The French Arms
As will be shown later, they were Azure, a semis of fleur-de-lis
or since 1200 or perhaps even 1170-80. They were changed to Azure,
3 fleur-de-lis or in 1376, by order of Charles V the Wise. It is sometimes
said that the reason was to spite the English King, who bore quarterly
France Ancient and England, and differentiate the arms of France from that
claimed by England. I am pretty sure the arms of France were shown with
3 fleur-de-lys prior to that, and possibly prior to the Hundred Years War,
for esthetic reasons. But it's an interesting idea.
Pastoureau on the fleur-de-lis
Here is a loose translation from translation Michel Pastoureau: Traité
d'Héraldique, Paris, 1979.
"The use for ornamental or symbolic purposes of the stylised flower
usually called fleur de lis is common to all eras and all civilisations.
It is an essentially graphic theme found on Mesopotamian cylinders, Egyptian
bas-reliefs, Mycenean potteries, Sassanid textiles, Gaulish coins, Mameluk
coins, Indonesian clothes, Japanese emblems and Dogon totems. The many
writers who have discussed the topic agree that it has little to do graphically
with the lily, but disagree on whether it derives from the iris, the broom,
the lotus or the furze, or whether it represents a trident, an arrowhead,
a double axe, or even a dove or a pigeon. It is in our opinion a problem
of little importance. The essential point is that it is a very stylised
figure, probably a flower, that has been used as an ornament or an emblem
by almost all civilisations of the old and new worlds.
The oldest known examples of fleur-de-lis similar to those used in the
Medieval Western world and in modern times can be found on assyrian bas-reliefs
from the 3d millenium BC. It is found on tiaras, necklaces, scepters, and
seems already to play the role of royal attribute. Those found a little
later in Crete, India and Egypt probably have a similar meaning. In numismatics,
we find the fleur-de-lis on a few Greek coins and on several Roman coins
from the Republic (mark of monetary magistrates) or the Empire (attribute
of Hope) and especially on Gaulish coins. [The book shows three coins:
a Gaulish coin (1st c. AD), a Mameluk coin (1390) and a coin of Louis VI
of France (1110-30), all displaying an unmistakable fleur-de-lis (at least
the upper-half of one, and a sort of triangle in the lower-half).] Whereas,
in Greek and Roman coins, it is a fleuron of variable shape, in the Celtic
case it is a true heraldic fleur-de-lis as it reappears in the 13th c.
While retaining its value as royal attribute, the fleur-de-lis acquires
in the high Middle Ages a strong Christic meaning, stemming from (among
others) the famous verse of the Song of Solomon (2:1): "ego
flos campi et lilium convallium" many times repeated and commented
from Saint Jerome to Saint Bernard. Therefore it is not rare, until the
end of the 12th c., to see Christ represented amidst more or less stylised
lilies or fleurons, whose design could also recall the Trinity of the Chrismon
(Christ's monogram). Then, slowly, on this Christic content is added a
Marial symbolic, linked to the development of the Cult of Mary, and to
which the next verse of the Song of Solomon is related (2:2): "sicut
lilium inter spinas, sic amica mea inter filias" as well as many parts
of the Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, where the lily is presented
as symbol of purity, virginity and chastity. In iconography, the lily becomes
a favorite attribute of the Virgin Mary and will remain so until the 16th
c.
The origin of fleur-de-lis adopted as heraldic emblems by the Kings
of France is a problem that has elicited much discussion. From the middle
of the 14th c, several works (mostly designed to legitimize the Valois
claims on the throne, against Edward III of England), explain that the
king of France "bears arms of three fleur-de-lis as sign of the blessed
Trinity, sent by God through His angel to Clovis, first Christian king...
telling him to erase the three crescents he bore on his arms and replace
them with the fleur-de-lis." This legend reappears at the end of the
15th c, but this time the alleged arms born by Clovis before his baptism
are not azure, three crescents or but azure, three toads or.
Significantly, at the end of the Middle Ages, Clovis' paganism is not represented
by a Muslim symbol (crescent) but a demonic one (toad). In any case, it
is only in the 17th c that this legendary origin of the fleur-de-lys began
to be subject to the criticism of scholars. The famous Scevole de Sainte-Marthe
seems to be the first to assert that the fleur-de-lys appeared on the shield
only under Philippe Auguste (1180-1223) or Louis VIII (1223-26). However,
until the end of the 19th c writers continued to profer the most fanciful
opinions on the subject. Today, Sainte-Marthe's opinion cannot be denied
anymore: it is known that there are no coats of arms before 1130-1140,
and the king of France was no the first to adopt a coat. H. Pinoteau's
work of the past 30 years have shed definitive light on the subject: although
we have no iconographic testimony of the coat azure, semy of fleur-de-lys
or by a king of France before Louis VIII (on a stained glass window
in Chartres of 1230; Louis VIII did bear the coat before becoming king,
on a seal of 1211), several chroniclers contemporary of Philippe Auguste
report that he used a banner with these arms, and his seal shows that as
early as 1180 he used a fleur-de-lys as emblem. [example of an official
of the royal demesne bearing the coat on his 1207 seal, and a cousin of
the king augmenting Courtenay with a shield of France Ancient on a 1210
seal. It may even have been adopted by Louis VII (1154-80).]
[The seals of Philip Augustus clearly have a single fleur-de-lys on
the reverse as of 1180. Before that, from 1050 at least, the seals of French
kings show them sitting, holding a sceptre in their left hand and what
looks like a fleur-de-lis in their right hand. The head of the sceptre
is a lozenge, but often the fleurons on the crown (3 of them) look like
fleur-de-lys.]
It remains to know why the king of France adopted the fleur-de-lys as
an emblem when all other sovereigns of Europe chose animals. The reason
seems twofold: on the one hand this flower had always retained its role
as attribute of sovereignty: it is in this capacity that it appears on
several royal Carolingian and Ottonian attributes, on the scepter of Capetian
kings since Robert (996-1031), on the reverse of Louis VI coins (early
12th c) and even on coins of Lothaire (954-986). On the other hand, the
flower acquired a strong religious meaning, either Christic or Marial;
it is probably under the influence of saint Bernard and Suger that Louis
VII (who was with Saint Louis the most pious king of France) adopeted this
emblem which symbolized both the royal dignity and Christian piety of his
person and his lineage.
[discussion of other families with the fleur-de-lys on their coat.]
The design of the fleur-de-lys has always been relatively stable and
since the 13th c the heraldic vocabulary used adjectives or phrases to
specify the design when it varied from the usual one. The most ancient
variation is the fleur-de-lys 'au pied nourri', i.e. without the lower
part, everything under the horizontal bar apparently cut off. Old French
also calls this fleur-de-lys 'en lonc' or 'a pié coupé'.
Sometimes the lower part is represented but in a triangular shape: it is
then called 'au pied posé'. These two variants appear in the North
of France and the Netherlands. Towards the middle of the 13th c, some seals
represent the fleur-de-lys in a more naturalistic fashion: it has stamina
between the petals, and the petals end with arabesques, as if one was trying
to evoke the last stage of bloom. Such a flower is called épanouie
or florencée, that of Florence being the
most famous example [Lille also bears the fleur-de-lys épanouie]."
Woodward on the fleur-de-lis
"Of all the floral devices used in Heraldry the most famous is
the fleur-de-lis now generally identified with the iris. Its floral character
has been altogether denied by some writers who have professed to trace
its origin to the head of a lance, spear or sceptre, to an architectural
finial; to a frog, bee, a sacred monogram, etc. (The student who is interested
will find all suggestions stated, and refuited, in the excellent work of
M. Rey: Histoire du Drapeau, Paris, 1837, and can hardly failed
to be surprised at the prodigious number of treatises which have been published
on the subject).
It is at first sight so difficult to explain the reason why, when other
great potentates were assuming for their armorial emblems the lion, the
eagle, etc, the sovereigns of France should have preferred the apparently
humble iris-flower, that we are hardly surprised to find the fact accounted
for by the tradition that it was brought from heaven itself by an angel
to Clovis, King of France, on the occasion of his baptism, as a special
mark of favor on the part of the Blessed Virgin, whose peculiar symbol
the lily has always been, The tradition has many variations of place and
circumstance. It is, however, somewhat surprising to find that the French
bishops at the Council of Trent, when disputing for the precedence of their
sovereign, fortified their claim by alleging that the King of France had
received the fleur-de-lis direct from heaven: Gallorum regem unctum
esse et lilia divinitus accepisse!
The most probable explanation of the origin of the fleur-de-lis as a
device of the Kings of France is that put forth by M. Rey, which has received
the approval of Mr Planche, "that the fleur de lys, or flower de luce
was merely a rebus signifying fleur de Louis." Up to the time of Louis
VII the kings of that name (identical with Clovis) called themselves, and
signed themselves, Loi"s or Loys. Even after the name had settled
into its present form, Loys was still the signature of the kings of France
up to the time of Louis XIII (1610-43). Loys, or Louis VII received from
his father the surname Florus.
The coins of Louis VI and Louis VII are the earliest on which the fleur-de-lys
appears. But it also appears at that time on the coins of Florence (a city
which wad the mint of many European sovereigns, and whence the name florin
is derived). M. Rey, in view of these facts, inquires: "Can we not
say then, that the coincidence of the surname Florus with the name of Loys
or lis, of that of Florence with that of fleur de lis, of all these names
and surnames, gave rise to the formation of the name of our illustrious
emblem?"
M. Rey traces the fleur-de-lys as an artistic ornament to very early
times; centuries antecedent to its adoption as an armorial design. (It
is curious that on a coin of Hadrian, Gaul is personified by a woman bearing
in her hand a lily: the legend is restitutori Galliae.) On a medal of Galba
the fleur-de-lis forms the head of a sceptre. Montfaucon gives an example
from an ancient diptych in which the crown of the empress Placidia (daughter
of the emperor Theodosius the Great), who died in 450, is enseigned with
a fleur-de-lys. These, and a multitude of other early instances, are given
in the plates by M. Rey, to whose work I refer again the curious reader.
In France, as in many other countries, the sceptre borne by the prince
was, at a very early date, ornamented by a flora lemblem, varying in detail
but bearing a general resemblance to the fleur-de-lys of later times.
The seals of the emperors Henry I (d. 1024) and Conrad II (d. 1039)
afford early illustrations of the custom (see Glafey, specimen decadem
sigillorum, Leipzig 1749; Roemer-Büchner, Die Siegel der deutschen
Kaiser, Frankfurt am Main, 1851). In France the germ of the armorial
fleur-de-lys can be traced to the fleurons which adorn the sceptres and
crowns of Henri I, Philippe I and Louis VI (11-12th c.). A signet of Louis
VII bears a fleur-de-lys florencee, but the charge first takes a definite
heraldic shape on the seals of Philippe Augustus (d. 1223); whose great
seal represents him crowned with an open crown of fleurons and holding
in his right hand a fleur-de-lys (several of his successors are similaryl
represented), in his left a sceptre surmounted by a lozenge charged with
the like emblem. On his counterseal is engraved in an oval a fleur-de-lis
entirely of the heraldic shape. (M. Demay, in his book vited in previous
pages, points out, pp. 194-196, the analogy which exists between the fleurons,
held in the hand, or surmounting the sceptre as well as adorning the crown,
to the effigies of the blessed Virgin depicted on the seal of the Chapter
of Notre Dame at Paris in 1146, and on that of the abbey of Faremoutiers
in 1197, with those born by St.Louis in 1226). On the occasion of the coronation
of his son Philip (in his own lifetime) the king, Louis VII, regulated
the details of the ceremony, and among other things prescribed that the
prince should wear "ses chausses...en soye couleur bleu azure semée
en moult endroit de fleurs de lys d'or, puis aussi sa dalmatique de meme
couleur et oeuvre" (Gourdon de Genouilhac, l'Art Héraldique,
p.224)."
The Clovis Legend
I will mention an amusing legend, according to which Clovis, on his
way to fight the king of Aquitania Alaric, and defeat him at Vouille near
Poitiers (in 507), was searching in vain for a ford to cross a river, when
a doe, frightened by the soldiers, jumped across the river along a ford
that it only knew. The whole army then followed. On the banks, wild yellow
irises grew in abundance: Clovis came off his horse, picked one and put
it on his helmet as a symbol of his future victory. Thereafter did the
kings of France use the fleur de lis as their emblem. The story is of course
fanciful, but a nice one (somewhat reminiscent of the manner in which Attila
found his way to Europe, actually).
Of Flowers
from Henry Correvon: Fleur des eaux et des marais; Neuchâtel
(Suisse), 1961: Editions Delachaux & Niestle.
"Let us discuss now the iris, of which there are very interesting
aquatic species. The marsh plant par excellence, at least in our regions,
is the Water iris (iris des eaux), Iris Pseudoacorus, whose bright yellow
large flowers bloom from June to September all across Europe, Western Asia
and North Africa.... [He goes on to tell the story of Clovis fording the
river which I narrated previously and concludes:] the flag of the Kings
of France then represented three of these iris flowers. In England this
flower is known as 'flagflower'. "
Separated at birth: a fleur-de-lys and
an iris, both spotted in Florence, Italy.
Lis and Iris in French
The first use of the word "iris" in French is in a 13th c.
manuscript, Le Livre des Medecines Simples, where it says: "iris
porte roge flor et ireos blanches." The word existed before, to name
a prism, or rock through which the light diffracts into a rainbow (here
the etymology is clear: Iris, messenger of the Gods). How it came to designate
the plant I don't know (ref: Godefroy: Dictionnaire de l'Ancienne Langue
Francaise, vol. 10, Kraus reprints, 1969).
The first instance of the word "lis", plural of an unattested
"lil" from Latin lilium, is around 1150 for the flower. The word
is often found as metonymy for the lily flower, and used in numerous metaphors
for whiteness, purity, etc. For example, in Erec et Enéide
by Chrestien de Troyes (ca. 1170): "plus ot que n'est la flor de lis,
Cler et blanc le front et le vis" (forehead and face pale and white
more than the lily flower) (example taken from: Tobler-Lommatzsch: Altfranzösisches
Wörterbuch). The word fleur de lis is also used as metaphor for
the Virgin Mary (1223). First clear-cut use of the word "fleur de
lis" in its heraldic acception is in 1225 in Durmart le Gallois, although
Victor Gay (Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen-Âge, vol.
1, Paris, 1887) claims that the word is used in an ordnance of Louis VII
(1137-1180), without giving any reference.
What is really strange is that the lily was such a constant metaphor
for whiteness, and would become a golden charge. As mentioned before, lilies
are usually white, not yellow.
Lillies and Irises in English
What about the English language? What follows are edited OED entries.
It appears that:
- in English, the iris was often called fleur-de-lis or flower-de-luce,
since the 16th century.
- Fleur-de-lis, to designate the heraldic charge, appears as early as
1400.
- the yellow iris, or common British species (Iris pseudacorus) is also
called Yellow Flag.
What to make of it? The late date for the use of fleur-de-lis in English
to designate the flower makes me suspect that, here, the charge came first
and the name was applied to the flower because of the formal resemblance.
iris , sb. Pl. irides , irises. [a. Gr. iris, stem
irid-. The senses (except 3 and 6) correspond to those of the Gr. word;
so also Fr. iris. The pl. irides is chiefly used in sense 4.]
1. Gr. Myth. The goddess who acted as the messenger of the gods, and was held
to display as her sign, or appear as, the rainbow; hence, allusively, a messenger.
2. a. A rainbow; a many-coloured refraction of light from drops of water.
b. transf. A rainbow-like or iridescent appearance; a circle or halo of
prismatic colours; a combination or alternation of brilliant colours.
c. fig.
3. a. A hexagonal prismatic crystal (mentioned by Pliny Nat. Hist.)
4. a. Anat. b. (transf.) Entom. c. Photogr. = iris-diaphragm;
5. Bot. A genus of plants, the type of the natural order Iridaceae, natives of
Europe, N. Africa, and the temperate regions of Asia and America; most of the
species have tuberous (less commonly bulbous or fibrous) roots, sword-shaped
equitant leaves, and showy flowers; formerly often called Fleur-de-lis or
Flower-de-luce. Also, a plant of this genus.blue iris, Iris germanica, the
German Flag, a common cultivated species; fetid iris, the Gladden, Iris
foetidissima; Florentine iris = white iris; stinking iris = fetid iris;
white iris, Iris florentina, from which orrisroot is obtained; yellow iris, the
Yellow Flag, Iris Pseudacorus, the common British species.
1562 Turner Herbal. ii. 23 a, Iris is knowen both of the Grecianes and Latines
by that name; it is called..in Englishe flour de lyce. 1578 Lyte Dodoens ii.
xxxv. 192 There be many kindes of Iris, or floure Deluce. 1578 Lyte Dodoens 193
The Irides or flower Deluces do most commonly flower about May.
fleur-de-lis , flower-de-luce . Forms: &ia.. 4-6 flour(e-de-lys(e, -lice,
-lyce, (pl. -lycis), 7 -lis, 5-7 -luce, pl. -luces, 6 floredelise, Sc. 5
flour(e-the-lis, -lys. &ib.. 6-9 flower-, (6 flowre-)de-luce, (pl. -luces),
6-7 -lice, (pl. -lices), 6 -lyce, 8 -lys, 7-9 -lis. &ig.. 8-9 fleur-de-lys, 9
-lis, pl. 7 fleur-de-lysses, -lyzes, 9 fleurs-de-lis, -lys, -luce. [The
prevailing form is a. mod.Fr. fleur de lis , formerly lys; but this form is
scarcely found in Eng. before the 19th c.; see above. The form flower-de-luce
survives as a poetical archaism and in U.S. The Fr. is literally `lily-flower'
from lis, formerly lys, in OFr. liz for lils lily, the s of the nom. sing.
being retained in the oblique cases; the English spelling de-lice, de-lyce, was
in its origin merely graphic (cf. price, mice, syce, etc.), but in the 16th c.
was associated with a fanciful etymology flos deliciae, and the form deluce, de
luce apparently also leaned upon a fanciful derivation. Occasional English
forms were deluce, delyce flowre.]
1. The flower of a plant of the genus Iris (esp. I. pseudacorus); the plant
itself. Cf. flag sb.1 1.
13.. E.E. Allit. P. A. 752 &Th.y colour passez &th.e flour-de-lys. A. 1400
Hymn Virg. vi. in Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry x. (1840) II. 110 Heil fairer then
the flour de lys. C. 1475 Rauf Coil&ygh.ear 670 Flowris with Flourdelycis
formest in feir. 1500-20 Dunbar Thistle & Rose 138 Lat no netill vyle..Hir
fallow to the gudly flour delyce. 1590 Spenser F.Q. ii. vi. 16 The lilly, lady
of the flowring field, The flowre-deluce, her lovely paramoure. 1699 Bentley
Phal. Pref. 104 The Muses are invited to come under the shadow of
Flower-de-luces. 1731-37 Miller Gard. Dict. (ed. 3) s.v. Iris, Iris
purpurea..Common purple Fleur-de-Lys. 1837 Campbell Lines in La Perouse's Voy.
Poet. Wks. 298 When, rapt in fancy..I..plucked the fleur-de-lys by Jesso's
streams. 1866 Longf. Flower-de-luce viii, O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let
the river linger to kiss thy feet!
b. fig.
1500-20 Dunbar Ballat Our Lady 42 Haile, fair fresche flour-de-lyce!
2. The heraldic lily; a device supposed by some to have originally represented
an iris, by others the top of a sceptre, of a battle-axe or other weapon. It
is best known from having been borne upon the royal arms of France under the
old monarchy.
C. 1400 Melayne 94 Wende thy waye..To Charles that beris the flour delyce.
1488 in Ld. Treas. Acc. Scotl. I. 81 Item ane vche of gold like a flourethelis
of diamantis. 1529 Rastell Pastyme (1811) 75, .iii. floure delyse in a feld
asure was sent to Kyng Clouys from hevyn for his armys. 1622 Malynes Anc.
Law-Merch. 189 The French Kings Tent with the three Flowerdeluces. 1709 Addison
Tatler No. 161 &page.9 A bloody Flag, embroidered with Flower-de Luces. 1843
Lytton Last Bar. ii. ii, A lofty head-gear, embroidered with fleur-de-lis. 1851
Layard Pop. Acc. Discov. Nineveh vii. 163 The first god wears the square horned
cap, surmounted by a point, or fleur-de-lys.
b. The royal arms of France; hence also the French royal family, the French
flag (before 1789), the French nation or government.
flag , sb.1 Also 4-7 flagg(e, (5 flegge). [Of obscure origin; cf. Dutch
flag, occurring in Bible 1637, Job viii. 11 margin (the Eng. Bible has the same
word in this passage), also mod.Da. flaeg (in Dansk Ordb. 1802, but not found in
MDa., which has flae, flaede in the same sense).]
1. a. One of various endogenous plants, with a bladed or ensiform leaf, mostly
growing in moist places. Now regarded as properly denoting a member of the
genus Iris (esp. I. pseudacorus) but sometimes (as in early use) applied to any
reed or rush. [cited 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) IV. 157]
b. With words indicating the species, as garden flag (Iris germanica); sweet
smelling flag, spicewort (Acorus Calamus); water flag, yellow flag (Iris
pseudacorus). Also corn-flag. 1580 Baret Alv. F 639 The water Flagge, or
the yellowe wild Iris.
The Yellow Flag Hypothesis
In his dictionary (s.v. fleur-de-lis) Furetière mentions a hypothesis
put forth by Godefridus Henschenius, a Flemish Jesuit priest (1601-81):
he claims that the fleur-de-lis represents the yellow flag (Iris Pseudacorus)
and mentions that the name of that flower in German is "Lieskblume":
that's how Furetière writes it.
It took me a while to figure out that he meant Lieschblume. As
it turns out, according to the Brockhaus Encyclopedia, the word Liesch
(also found as Leesch and Lees) designates a number of plants
of the reed family, and also reed-shaped plants, like (among others) the
gelbe Schwertlilie. Now Lilie is lily, Schwertlilie is iris, and
gelbe Schwertlilie (yellow iris literally) is the Iris Pseudacorus,
the native wild iris of Europe. In Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch
(Leipzig, 1885, vol. 7), liesch is said to have appeared in many
forms in the Middle Ages and in dialects: lisch, lüsch, lies, liesz,
liesze, lieyes, leys (the last two in "niederrheinisch", Lower-Rhine
dialect I presume). Also, Grimm translate Lieschblume as "flos iridis,
flos gladioli".
So Lieschblume is iris flower, and the Liesch is one of the names of
the yellow flag, I. pseudacorus. Moerover, Liesch was variously written
as Lees, Lies, Liesz, Leys, Lieyes. That's enough to let me believe that,
in pre-heraldic times (say 10th-11th c.) a confusion could have arisen
in the North of France between Lieschblume, translated as fleur-de-lis
and the iris flower.
Other interesting details:
- according to Brockhaus, the lilium of Old Testament is none other than
the Iris pseudacorus.
- the Iris pseudacorus, as the lily, was an emblem of Mary, and Brockhaus
cites Dürer and Hugo van der Goes.
- another name for the yellow flag in French is "flambe" or
(in some dialects) "flamme". The word comes from flamma or flammula.
There is a 14th c. citation in Godefroy: "Yreos est flambe qui a la
fleur blanche" (H. de Mandeville). Littré says: "Flambe:
nom donné à l'iris Germanica et à l'iris des marais
(iris pseudacorus), dite aussi flamme dans quelques provinces." (name
given to i. Germanica [which is blue] and to the yellow flag, also called
Flamme in some provinces.)
This makes it quite interesting, because the French "flag"
or banner of the Middle Ages, the oriflamme,
aurea flammula, can become... the golden fleur-de-lis.
