56 FLORAL SYMBOLISM 



out the Christian world, and to his influence may 

 be traced the high position which the Mother 

 of Christ now holds in the Roman Catholic 

 Church. But, so far, the lily had not appeared 

 in pictorial art in connection with the Virgin. 



In the twelfth century, however, we find 

 ecclesiastical seals which bear the figure of the 

 Virgin holding by the left hand (or right, as it 

 would appear on the impress) the Child, and in 

 her right a branch of lilies. Two of these seals, 

 that of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln and 

 that of Thornholm Priory in Lincolnshire, are 

 now in the British Museum. It seems to have 

 been the fashion in the eleventh, twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries to engrave the owner's 

 figure on a seal with a flower in the hand. On 

 the seal of Capet Henri I he is shown with a 

 sceptre in one hand and a fleur-de-lys in the 

 other, and the figures on the seals of the Queens 

 of France have a flower in either hand. There- 

 fore it was only natural, when cutting the Virgin's 

 figure on a seal, that the craftsman should give 

 her a flower too, and the Virgin's own flower, 

 the lily. 



The conservatism of churchmen and the 



