Official State Symbol of Louisiana: Fleur-de-lis [9th July 2008]

On July 9th, 2008, Governor Bobby Jindal signed into Louisiana Law that the State's symbol would be the 'lily flower' or, as it has been known in France for ten centuries, the Fleur-de-lis !

What is this flower? What is its significance? What is its political, dynastic, artistic, emblematic, symbolic & religious meaning?

Here competence in the 'language of culture' is required: Liturgy, Literature & Scholarship [Humanistic and 'Scientific'] ! There is not a fourth category. The Governor is engaging in 'French Royal Court Propaganda' or to express it better, his Administration's ideologions are. He is introducing the 'odor of sanctity' in the high political culture of Louisiana as its first Indic prince-governor.

To understand the significance and symbolic meaning of this flower requires competence in Classical Egyptian Hieroglyphic Grammar, Classical Hebrew, Classical Alexandrian Greek [3rd BCE to 5th CE], Old French, Old High German [especially, the Frankish dialect of the Carolingians], and Vulgar Church Latin.

No competent scholarly treatise has been written on this 'symbol'! Yet the Fluer-de-Lis is the symbol of French royalty and nobility for the last ten centuries; it is also the source of three later Medieval legends purporting to capture the Baptism of the great Merovingian King of the Franks [Chlodovech, OHG "praised fighter"], Clovis I (c. 466 to 511) in 496 CE, the founder of the French nation as Rex Francorum ['King of the Franks']. The King of France has received the Fleur-de-lis direct from heaven: Gallorum regem unctum esse et lilia divinitus accepisse! [Assertion by the French bishops at the Council of Trent]

There is also the Biblical tradition, since the Hebrew plant Shoshanna [Egptian Loan Word for its sexual-narcotic Lotus flower] mentioned in Song of Solomon or "Song of Songs" 2.6, 4.5, 5.13, 6.2-3, 7.2 and 'Shoshanna of the valleys' 2.1 for the White Lily (also, in other translations, hyacinth, narcissus, crowfeet, chemomile and rose). It is these references that made the showy White Lily employed as the symbol of female 'virginity, chastity and (sexual) purity' (especially, applied to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Here one must read the Alexandrian and Antiochian Exegetes on the "Song of Songs" of late antiquity for its many spiritual meanings. A very daunting task in the vast Commentary literature of this most famously well-read erotic Book of the Bible from the 2nd century CE to the 13th century CE.

When the French Monarchy changed from the Direct Capetian Dynasty [la Maison capetienne, Les Capetiens], who ruled France from 987 CE to 1328 CE, to its cadet branch, The House of Valois [French, Valois "of the valley"], who ruled from 1328 CE to 1589 CE, this passage 2.1 from the "Song of Songs" took on an even greater symbolic polyvalent sense, "the lilies of the valley."

Let us quote the exact Hebrew-Greek-Latin text in English:

Chapter 2.1-2:

"I am a flower of Sharon [i.e., the plain of Sharon between Mount Carmel and Jaffa, the plant is the narcissus],
a lily of the valley [lily = Hebrew, Shoshanna; Greek Septuagint, Krinon; Latin vulgate, Lilium]."

"As a lily among thorns,
so is my beloved among women"

[However, the old Latin manuscripts read "sicut lilium inter spinas, sic amica mea inter lilias" (English, 'As a lily among thorns, so (is) my beloved among lilies.')] The Medieval Exegets had a field day with this rendering in its fourfold sense: literal, allegorical, tropological (moral) and anagogical (spiritual).] John Cassian (5th century) taught Augustine these four senses; he uses as an example, the capital of Judea, Jerusalem, 1st sense (literal) the actual city; 2nd sense (allegorical) the Church; 3rd sense (tropological) the human soul; and the 4th sense (anagogical) the Heavenly city ! [See his "Conferences, 14.8"]

How did the lily get connected to Kings? Read these passages in the "Song of Songs":

Chapter 1.4 "Bring me, O King, to your chambers...how rightly you are loved!"

Chapter 6.2b-4 "My lover has come down to his garden, to the beds of spice, To browse in the garden and to gather lilies. My lover belongs to me and I to him; he browses among the lilies."

"You are as beautiful as Tirzah [Hebrew etymology meaning "pleasant"; it was the first capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, before Samaria became the great capital], my beloved, as lovely as Jerusalem, as awe-inspiring as bannered troops."

It is this passage that motivated the placement of lilies on the royal French military banners or flags.

Now there are two versions of the 'Heraldic charge' [Armorial insignia on shields in heraldry, or French arms in this discussion here] for the French kings:

France Ancient: Azure, a semis de fleur-de-lis or [English, "Blue, seeded with the lily-flower gold"].

Used from 1170 CE to 1376 CE [The reign of Louis VII, le Jeune (August 1st, 1137 to September 18th, 1180) to the reign of Charles V, le Sage (April 8th, 1364 to September 16th, 1380)]

On the occasion of the coronation of King Louis VII's son, Philip II Auguste (ruled from September 18th, 1180 to July 14th, 1223), co-kingship to insure continuity of the monarchy, Louis regulated the details of the ceremony, and among other things prescribed that the prince should wear "ses chausses...en soye couleur bleu azure semee en moult ebdroit de fleurs de lys d'or, puis aussi sa dalmatique de meme couleur et oeuvre" [Gourdon de Genouilhac, " l'Art Heraldique " p. 224]

France Modern: Azure, 3 fleur-de-lis or (English, "Blue, three gold lily flowers")

Used from 1376 by direct orders of Charles V until the extinction of the French Monarchy on February 24th, 1848 under Louis-Phillipe I, le Roi Citoyen.

What was the symbolic icon or marketing emblem of French Louisiana of Acadiana has now become the official symbol of Louisiana: the Three fleur-de-lis. [French singular, "fleur-de-lys"; French plural, "fleur-de-lis"].

There is much more information on this topic. This is merely to whet the appetite of our young to explore their rich French cultural history.

The Lords Malin [We devolve from Earnest the Iron (OHG, 'Ernust') who gave a son to the almost extinct Habsburg dynasty in the 14th century; our family was raised to higher German nobility by that fortunate paternity act.]