the sin of our first father Adam." This we are told in the "Order of Chivalry," translated by Caxton.[1] While stretched wounded and dying on the battle-field, some friendly hand would stick a sword into the ground before the expiring knight, that as in its handle he beheld this symbol of the cross, he might forgive him who had struck him down, as he hoped forgiveness for himself, through the atonement paid for him on the cross at Calvary.
The ages of chivalry were times of poetry, and we therefore feel no surprise on finding that each young knight was taught to learn that belonging to every article of his armour, to every colour of his silken array, there was a symbolism which he ought to know. All these emblematic significations are set forth in the "Order of Chivalry," which we just now quoted. The work is very rare, but the chapter on this subject is given by Ames in his "Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain;"[2] as well as in "Lancelot du Lac" modernized and printed in the "Bibliothèque Bleu," pp. 11, 12. In that black silk chasuble with a red orphrey upon which our Lord is figured hanging upon a green cross—"cum crucifixo pendente in viridi cruce,"[3] it was for a particular reason that the colour of this wood for the cross is specified: as green is the tint of dress put on by the new-born budding year, which thus foretells of flowers and fruits in after months, so was this same colour the symbol of regeneration for mankind, and the promise of paradise hereafter. For such a symbolic reason is it that, upon the wall painting lately brought again to light in West Somerton Church, Norfolk, our uprisen Lord is shown stepping out of the grave, mantled in green, with the banner of the resurrection in His left hand, and giving a blessing with His upraised right. At all times, and in every land, the "Language of Flowers" has been cultivated, and those who now make it their study will find much to their purpose in Chaucer, especially in his "Flower and the Leaf." There speaking of "Diane, goddesse of chastite," the poet says:—
And for because that she a maiden is,
In her hond the braunch she beareth this,
That agnus castus men call properly;
And tho that weare chapelets on their hede
Of fresh woodbind, be such as never were
Of love untrue in word, thought ne dede,
But aye stedfast, &c.[4]
