The true lily has long been associated with Mary. A subbranch of ethnobotany as applied to Christianity (particularly in the Middle Ages) is the language and history of Christian symbolism called iconography. In this form of symbolic expression, the lily has often accompanied representations of the Annunciation. As its name “flower of lily” suggests in French, the fleur-de-lis represents the bloom in stylized form. It began life as a religious symbol of purity, and like the blossom itself, the emblem was connected with the Mother of God. In the twelfth century, statues of the Virgin were clothed in mantles embellished with lilies.
Among the hues that have frequently been used for Mary’s clothing or other items in her vicinity, one of the most important is blue, the color of heaven, among other things. In Western art, many Madonnas wear a blue garment, especially when they depict the Mother of God with the Christ Child in arms or nearby. This shade may have become traditional for the Virgin in the West under Byzantine influence. In French heraldry, the same bluish tint has served for the skylike background against which golden fleurs-de-lis are set in the coat of arms that was used for centuries by the French monarchy. Even long after the demise of the royal house, the device retains power. To this day, three golden fleurs-de-lis on an escutcheon of blue, surmounted by a gold crown that itself is topped by further fleurs-de-lis, remain a symbol of France. Talk about gilding the lily, and about good as gold!
Fig. 2.4 A fourteenth-century pilgrim’s badge, depicting the Virgin holding Christ and a fleur-de-lis. Illustration,
ca. 1862–1866. Artist unknown. Published in Arthur Forgeais, Collection de plombs historiés trouvés dans la Seine
(Paris: Chez l’auteur et chez Aubry, 1862–1866), 33.
Fig. 2.5 A pilgrim’s badge depicting the Black Madonna and child.
Fourteenth century (1st quarter).
To decipher the story of the fleur-de-lis, we must train our code-breaking gaze upon the Middle Ages. In the medieval period, the symbolism was employed first by the Church. The blazons and tokens of churches dedicated to the Mother of God incorporated the fleur-de-lis motif (see Fig. 2.4). For instance, consider the emblem that the Benedictine priory of Rocamadour used in its seal, which was adopted for pilgrims’ badges (see Fig. 2.5).
The design depicts the Black Virgin of this pilgrimage site, who is crowned, backed by a nimbus, and holding a scepter topped by a fleur-de-lis, with the babe on her left knee. The keepsakes resemble plaques at Our Lady of Le Puy-en-Velay to commemorate the Virgin and Child, which likewise feature the crown and scepter with this floral grace note. The fleur-de-lis as a device of royalty befitted Mary in her role as queen of heaven. Similarly, gold goes well with the meaning of Marian majesty.
An engraving produced in 1523 (see Fig. 2.6) shows the Mother of God, crowned with a golden fleur-de-lis above the center of her forehead, clad in blue, and holding the Child. Below her sits a blazon of three fleurs-de-lis itself surmounted by a crown, against a field of additional fleurs-de-lis. (The illustration could not be more fleur-de-licious—or should we say fleur-de-lightful?)
From the symbolic language of medieval Christian art, the flower and perhaps also the blueness of the Virgin were appropriated by the Capetian kings of France (r. 978–
1328) to embody the spiritual claims of their dynasty. It was to invoke her holiness and to establish their authorization through it that French kings began to employ the fleur-de-lis heraldically. In addition, they connected their special cultivation of Mary with courtliness. Further, they brought out parallels between the ministry of the Mother of God and their own status as rulers anointed by Christ. Like her, they had the capacity to dispense mercy and to heal. The Marian lily of the Virgin and the royal one of the Capetians were thus closely related.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many forces in France connived to make the stylized lily a rallying point, sometimes for religion, often for royalism, but beyond all else for the quintessence of Frenchness. After Gaston Paris and Anatole France had plied their pens, Jules Massenet took up his baton to project the story of the jongleur into the 1900s. In doing so, he knew well how to toe a line between conservative Catholics and devout secularists. The artist of the art nouveau poster for Massenet’s opera Le jongleur de Notre Dame portrayed the Madonna in a red garment with golden fleurs-de-lis. In a canvas from 1928, a quarter century later, the English painter Glyn Warren Philpot portrayed the juggler kneeling upon a rug patterned with fleurs-de-lis.
The symbol has remained soldered to our tale. How could it be otherwise? The story originated in France, is most often set there, and has at its center a miracle performed by the Virgin Mary in response to veneration shown to a Madonna in a great church dedicated in her honor. Yet the French connection does not mean that the fleur-de-lis has not proven to be attractive in other countries, both within Europe and especially in a large one across the Atlantic. From the United States, the adaptation of the “old French legend” by Barbara Cooney in 1961 has the text block enclosed in
blue end leaves with fleurs-de-lis in white (see Fig. 2.7). So too a later German verse translation of the medieval tale from 1999 by Tatiana von Metternich is covered in a pattern of gold fleurs-de-lis against a blue background (see Fig. 2.8). From 1974, we find the “North Central Christmas Book ‘Our Lady’s Juggler’… based on a medieval legend as retold by a Catholic priest of the diocese of St. Cloud” (see Fig. 2.9). The story is set in the made-up French town of Peigne, no doubt a distorted abridgment of Anatole France’s Compiègne. The cloth cover bears fleurs-de-lis, embellished with extra shoots, which alternate with other stylized blooms (see Fig. 2.10). Three years later, in 1977, appears the palm-sized The Juggler of Our Lady: An Old Tale Retold, bound in Christmas green and sporting the customary golden stylized flowers (see Fig. 2.11). These books from the 1960s and later were far from the earliest use of the fleur-de-lis by illustrators of Our Lady’s Tumbler and the variegated clan of imitations ultimately inspired by it. For example, the first text page of Edwin Markham’s 1907 poem, “The Juggler of Touraine,” is topped by a black-and-white figure. It depicts a single candle, surrounded by the tackle preferred by this sort of performer. The taper burns before a Gothic niche where a nimbate Madonna and Child bivouac. The image in turn stands against a backcloth that is imprinted with the characteristic floral motif.
Even the lily in the publisher’s device designed by Bertram Goodhue for Copeland
& Day in the last decade of the nineteenth century likely has Marian implications.
Its Latin motto, boxed within the customary scrollwork, means “as a lily among thorns.” Although taken from Song of Solomon 2:2 in the Hebrew Bible, the verse was traditionally interpreted by Christian exegetes as referring to the Virgin. The expression is immediately understandable. Yet when pushed, it deconstructs itself.
Roses, like lilies, have been a popular religious symbol of Mary, and roses, not lilies, grow on thorny stalks.
Fig. 2.6 Virgin and Child associated with fleur-de-lis iconography. Engraving, 1523. Artist unknown.
Published in Mathurin des Roys, Histoire de Notre-Dame du Puy-en-Velay (Le Puy-en-Velay, France, 1523).
Fig. 2.7 Decorative endleaf from Barbara Cooney, The Little Juggler (New York: Hasting
House Publishers, 1961). © Barbara Cooney Porter Royalty Trust. All rights reserved.
Fig. 2.8 Front cover of Tatiana von Metternich, Der Gaukler der Jungfrau Maria
(Wiesbaden, Germany: Modul, 1999).
Fig. 2.9 Vincent Arthur Yzermans (left) in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, during Vatican II.
Photograph, 1963. Photographer unknown.
Fig. 2.10 Front cover pattern for Vincent Arthur Yzermans, Our Lady’s Juggler (St. Paul, MN:
North Central Publishing Company, 1974).
Fig. 2.11 Cover pattern for Walter Kahoe, The Juggler of Our Lady: An Old Tale Retold, illus. Gus Uhlmann
(Moylan, PA: The Rose Valley Press, 1977).