"Le Fleur de Lis"

 

 

 

The symbol that we have come to recognize as the Fleur de lis, as a symbolic image of royalty and a decorative element in architecture, has much more history that we may think. Although perhaps best known through its association with French royalty, the symbol itself is of far greater antiquity, and occurs in the most ancient art of both the Old and New Worlds. In fact its first appearance is dating as far back as Mesopotamia.

 

The fleur-de-lis is a stylized symbolic representation of the Lilium Candidum lily – the “Goddess lily”, which has been described as “a royal flower of the ancient world without equal”. This flower once grew close to Sumer on the nearby slopes of the southern Zagros Mountains. 

 

Historians propose that Sumer which was settled between 4500 and 4000 BCE by a non-Semitic people and known as the "land of the civilized kings”, was where the first royalty and high rank warriors were depicted wearing helmets crowned with the Fleur de Lis emblem. Enki, the winged Sumerian deity is portrayed with a Fleur de Lis on his head symbolizing divinity and Lordship, while holding a ritual bucket in one hand and a pine cone from the Tree of Everlasting Life in the other.

 

In many Sumerian clay tablet there are depicted images of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar) between two winged figures wearing the Fleur de Lis on top of their heads, during a ritual.

The Assyro-Babylonian god Dagon is also wearing the same helmet of power and divinity. 

It was also found in a tomb in the island of Cyprus around 8th century BCE as drawing portrayed a bearded winged deity with Fleur de lis symbol, in association with a winged sun disc. 

 

In my research I see more evidences of ancient history about this symbol, as in the pre-Columbian art for example, we find it  as a symbol of majesty and divinity, linked to a trinity of gods, a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge, and a mushroom of immortality. The mushroom, or forbidden fruit, being the medium through which one achieved ecstasy and thus communion with the gods.  

 

While the similarities in appearance and meaning of the Fleur de lis symbol in pre-Columbian art may be entirely coincidental, logic would argue with it. We have to keep in consideration of the possibility of ancient transoceanic contact with the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus. Descendants of the Mesoamerican god-king Quetzalcoatl, and thus all Mesoamerican kings or rulers, were also identified with the trefoil, or Fleur de lis symbol. 

 

From its earliest records it was also the flower of Hera, the Greek moon goddess, and it has been the symbol of purity and it was accordingly readily adopted (or stolen) by the Church to associate the Virgin Mary's sanctity.

One LEGEND identifies it as the golden lily given at his baptism to Clovis, the merovingian king of the Franks (466–511), by the Virgin Mary as a symbol of his purification upon his conversion to Christianity.

 

The lily was also said to have sprung from the tears shed by Eve as she left Eden.. It was sometimes used in relation to Gabriel and the Annunciation, where he declares that Mary will conceive and give birth to Jesus. It is also said that the three petals and three sepals (the leaves below the petals) are a tribute to the trinity; that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Paintings of Joan of Arc depicting her carrying a white banner with the French royal emblem of the fleur-de-lis, when she led troops to victory of the English in support of Charles VII, in his quest for the French throne.

 

During medieval era, the three leaves seems to represent  also the three social classes of society: those who worked, those who fought, and those who prayed.  It is a stylized emblem or device much used in ornamentation and, particularly, in heraldry, long associated with the French crown, and it is said to signify perfection, light and life.

 

In the twelfth century, either King Louis VI or King Louis VII became the first French King to use the fleur-de-lis on his shield. English kings later used the symbol on their coats of arms to emphasize their claim to the throne of France. It appear also in the arms of the King of Spain and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and members of the House of Bourbon. 

 

In Florentine fleurs-de-lis, the stamens are always posed between the petals. This heraldic charge is often known as the Florentine lily to distinguish it from the conventional (stamen-less) design. As an emblem of the city, it is therefore found in icons of its patron saint, Zenobius. The currency of Florence, the “fiorino", was decorated with it. 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. 

 

The Fleur-de-lis is often used as a decorative element in architecture. It is commonly seen in Gothic  styles, as well as churches and places associated with royalty. The symbol often appears atop fences, in stained glass mosaics, or in friezes and cornices.

 

The seeming confusion between the iris and the lily is commonly found throughout all the early writings on this subject, for it was only during the 19th century that the iris ceased to be known as a lily. This golden lily, now called an Iris, still grows along the Lys (Luts) river banks, in lands drained by the Franks. When pressed and dried it reveals clearly the shape of the stylized heraldic charge. This is, on balance, its most probable origin.

 

Another hypothesis is that in the 17th century, a wild species of iris growing in the marsh, was called Lieschblume by the Germans, and 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”.

 

The Flor de Lis is a cleansing process that releases memories of bloodshed of constant warfare and slavery to ideas, places, situations, brainwash and beliefs that result in constant warfare. It is the bearer of a promise that something is going to change and that it has the ability to express itself to Humanity. A promise of new alliances, between the Universe and Human Earth, to connect dimensions, even when humanity don't understand the true purpose and message. A promise of the good news to come, as it is a vehicle to Enlightenment.

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Paola Luciani Fulbright