Note E243 — 43.
Reading edition
"Flower de luce," the flos deliciarum of the Middle Ages. Ducange, quoting from the history of the Harcourts, says:—"Thomas, Dux Exoniæ habet comitatum de Harcourt ... per homagium ac reddendum florem deliciarum apud Castrum de Rouen," etc. (A.D. 1423). Another derivation is as follows:—"Louis VII. dit le Jeune, prit le premier des fleurs de lis, par allusion à son nom de Loys (comme on l'écrivait alors). On a dit dans ce temps-là Fleur de Loys, puis Fleur de Louis, enfin, Fleur de Lis." (Grandmaison, Dict. Heraldique.) The flower that he chose seems to have been a white one, for Chaucer says:
"His nekke was white as is the flour de lis."
In E. K.'s Glossary to Spenser's Shep. Cal. April, we read "Flower delice, that which they use to misterme Flowre deluce being in the Latine called Flos delitiarum."