In the Catacombs there are no virgin martyrs depicted, and the few lilies found there represent merely the flora of Heaven with the general significance of celestial bliss. In the early mosaics, too, both in Ravenna and Rome, the lilies are decorative and the virgins carry crowns of victory.
But as early as the ninth century the lily is used pictorially as the indication of virginity in the famous Beneditional of Saint Ethelwold of Winchester.[279] The Saxon queen, Saint Ethelreda (Saint Audry), who leads the choir of virgin saints, wears the Benedictine habit, is crowned, and holds in one hand the gospel and in the other a lily. She founded Ely Cathedral and, at least after her second marriage, lived as a nun. The miniature was executed in 980.
In the Church of S. Chiara in Naples there is a picture executed in mosaic of the early Christian martyr, Saint Reparata. The mosaic, which is of the thirteenth century, is attributed to Cavallini, and the saint has a lily by her side.
But after the thirteenth century the lily is given almost exclusively to saints of the monastic orders, the higher distinction of the palm being awarded to the martyrs. ‘For,’ says Durandus, ‘the Martyrdom taketh precedence of the Virginity; because it is a sign of the more perfect love: according as the Truth saith, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’”
Occasionally these early saints are given the lily in addition to the palm. Mantegna paints Saint Euphemia with a lily in the right hand and a palm in the left.[280] But usually they have the palm alone. The lilies of Saint Cecilia allude to the celestial lilies of her legend.
À propos of Saint Cecilia, Chaucer’s very charming, if fanciful, derivation of her name may be recalled:
‘First wol I you the name of Sainte Cecilie
Expoune as men may in hire storie see:
It is to sayn in English, Hevens lilie,
For pure chasteness of virginitee,