In Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea and its derivative, Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale, crowns of lilies and roses are brought by an angel to the future martyrs Cecilia and her husband after she has converted him to Christianity and continence. The usual symbolism of the flowers has been settled by Messrs. Holthausen and Lowes as being chastity and martyrdom; and Mr. Emerson found the earliest occurrence, so far, of them and their symbolism in an authentic work of St. Ambrose. But there was no ground for asserting the original source to be here. Nor is it the Proper Preface for St. Cecilia's day in the Ambrosian missal, from which both legends make a long quotation; the Proper Preface merely reflects some earlier version of the legend, and its date can hardly be determined. Nor in the gospel of pseudo-Matthew (or “Liber de ortu B. Mariae et infantia Salvatoris”), which has been suggested as “probably the source of the whole medieval conception of the symbolism of the two crowns of martyrdom and virginity.” The righteous Abel is here said (cap. vii) to have received two crowns. But not to mention the fact that they are not of flowers, while one crown is for his virginity, the other is not for his own innocent death (though later so misunderstood) but for his acceptable offering to God. Further, this pseudo-gospel seems to be not older than the eighth or ninth century, and this detail is not found in its main source, the “Protevangelium of James.” The early metaphorical examples collected from Sts. Cyprian and Jerome by Miss R. D. Cornelius are mentioned later.