ABOUT THE STICKER
While the fleur-de-lis has appeared on countless
European coats of arms and flags over the centuries, it
is particularly associated with the French monarchy in a
historical context, and continues to appear in the arms
of the King of Spain and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg
and members of the House of Bourbon. It remains an
enduring symbol of France that appears on French postage
stamps, although it has never been adopted officially by
any of the French republics. According to French
historian Georges Duby, the three petals represent the
medieval social classes: those who worked, those who
fought, and those who prayed.[5]
In France it is
widely used in city emblems like in the coat of arms of
the city of Lille, Saint-Denis, Brest, Clermont-Ferrand,
Boulogne-Billancourt and Calais. Some cities that had
been particularly faithful to the Crown were awarded an
heraldic augmentation of two or three fleurs-de-lis on
the chief of their coat of arms; such cities include
Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Reims, Le Havre,
Angers, Le Mans, Aix-en-Provence, Tours, Limoges,
Amiens, Orléans, Rouen, Argenteuil, Poitiers, Chartres
and Laon among others. The fleur-de-lis was the symbol
of Île-de-France, the core of the French kingdom. It
appeared on the coat-of-arms of other historical
provinces of France, like Burgundy, Anjou, Picardy,
Berry, Orléanais, Bourbonnais, Maine, Touraine, Artois,
Dauphiné, Saintonge and the County of La Marche. Many of
the current departments uses the ancient symbol on its
coat to express this heritage.
In Florentine
fleurs-de-lis,[f] the stamens are always posed between
the petals. This heraldic charge is often known as the
Florentine lily to distinguish it from the conventional
design. As an emblem of the city, it is therefore found
in icons of the bishop Zenobius.[6] The currency of
Florence, the fiorino, was decorated with it, and it
influenced the appearance and name of the Hungarian
forint and other florins. The Tuscan towns of Firenzuola
and Castelfiorentino inherited the red Florentine lily
on their coat. The Finnish city of Turku uses a
fleur-de-lis similar to the Florentine one on its coat.
The heraldic
fleur-de-lis is still widespread: among the numerous
cities which use it as a symbol are some whose names
echo the word 'lily', for example, Liljendal, Finland,
and Lelystad, Netherlands. This is called canting arms
in heraldic terminology. Other European examples of
municipal coats-of-arms bearing the fleur-de-lis include
Lincoln in England, Morcín in Spain, Wiesbaden in
Germany, Skierniewice in Poland and Jurbarkas in
Lithuania. The Swiss municipality of Schlieren and the
Estonian municipality of Jõelähtme also have a
fleur-de-lis on their coats.
In Malta, the town
of Santa Venera has three red fleurs-de-lis on its flag
and coat of arms. These were derived from a gate which
was part of the Wignacourt Aqueduct that had three
sculpted fleurs-de-lis on top, as they were the heraldic
symbols of Alof de Wignacourt, the Grandmaster who
financed its building. Another suburb which developed
around the area became known as Fleur-de-Lys, and it
also features a red fleur-de-lis on its flag and coat of
arms.
