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by Vincent Morley
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[An updated version of this article can be found at the Saints and Seasons webpage.]
The calendar entry for 23 April reads: "George, Martyr, 4th century." It's a curious survival when one considers that the Roman Catholic Church has dropped this date from its calendar altogether on the grounds that George is more a legend than an authentic saint (but see note). Yet some knowledge about him would be helpful since he is the patron saint of England - and therefore also of the Church of England and, in a sense, of the Anglican Communion - as well as of Portugal, Aragon and a number of Italian and Greek cities and towns including Padua and Mantua, not to mention a few centres in Germany. And in most of these places 23 April is still St. George's Day.
Information about him is hard to come by - the Encyclopaedia Britannica has
two paragraphs, my tome on church history not a word - and I finally tracked him down in a Victorian book called
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages by the Revd Sabine Baring-Gould (an eccentric who, incidentally, was the author
of Onward, Christian Soldiers!). According to this gentleman, George is
usually supposed to be the unnamed martyr mentioned by the church historian
Eusebius, a soldier who in 303 AD publicly tore to pieces an edict of the
Emperor Diocletian (ruled 285-313 AD) against the Christian churches in
Nicomedia (a small town near the Bosporus, now called Izmit, which was the
capital under Diocletian and Constantine). The protester was immediately
executed.
His popularity rapidly grew - and so, unfortunately, did the list of
fantastical miracles attached to his name. In the Middle Eastern churches
he is or was believed to have been put to death seven times, each time
miraculously recovering - this appears to be a Christianisation of the old
Semitic myth of the god Tammuz. The George of the seven miracles is also
revered by Islam, under the name Gherghis or El Khoudi. More familiar to us
is the set of legends derived from an Indo-European myth, in which George
arrives in time to rescue a princess condemned to death (much against her
royal father's will) to satisfy the cravings of a dragon for human flesh.
George is supposed to have speared the dragon and then either beheaded it
on the spot or, using the maiden's girdle as a halter, led it to her father
and beheaded it in his presence.
It is this legend that appears to have been especially popular among knights
returning from the Crusades, which would account for George's adoption as a
patron saint so widely in Europe. As early as 1098 he is credited with
helping the Franks at the Battle of Antioch, and - as a soldier - he always
seems to have been a saint who helped armies win battles.
England's patron saint under the Normans and early Plantagenets was ironically, a Saxon king, Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042-1066). (An earlier King Edward [martyred in 978] is also remembered as a saint.) George crept in first as patron of the Order of the Garter in 1348 under Edward III. (George had previously been made patron of an Austrian order of knighthood, too.) The following year Edward, during the siege of Calais, is said to have suddenly drawn his sword and called out: "Ha! Saint Edward. Ha! Saint George!" According to Thomas of Walsingham, these words "instilled spirit in his soldiers and they fell with vigour on the French and routed them". From then on, George was England's favourite, and Pope Benedict XIV declared him to be England's protector.
The blood-red cross of St. George now also became associated with England. This had not always been George's: the Archangel Michael appears to have found his way into heraldry first, as a knight in silver armour with a red cross on his shield and banner, symbolically killing the Devil in the shape of a dragon. This image was transferred to George, however, and appears in the regalia of the Order of the Garter. (It's also found, incidentally, on the club tie of Port Elizabeth's St. George's Club.) It was the custom of the times to have, in addition to the king's banner of his coat of arms, a "badge" flag, often bearing a cross. Many such crossed banners were presented by the Popes, and one which crops up all over the former Holy Roman Empire is the white cross on red of the empire - it's even the origin of the Danish flag, called the Dannebrog, and the Swiss flag.
Until George came on the scene, England's badge was a white cross on blue,
but this was replaced by St George's red cross - today the central element
in Britain's Union Jack. (The white cross on blue was adopted by France,
and is today [with white fleurs-de-lis added] the flag of French-speaking Quebec.)
The cross of St. George wasn't only a flag, though. While every knight and
nobleman had his coat of arms, not all had a livery to dress their
men-at-arms in, and soldiers without livery would wear the country's cross
as a surcoat (cloth covering for their armour) when fighting for the king:
so the English soldiers marched in white surcoats with red crosses or, if
in livery, with white armbands bearing a red cross (very different in
meaning from today's Red Cross emblem). One wonders if the "red cross army"
might have inspired Onward Christian Soldiers.
While the combined crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and "St. Patrick" have
replaced the plain cross of St. George as Britain's national flag, the red
cross is still the proper flag to fly from an English church. The red cross
also finds its way into the coats of arms of Anglican churches across
England and around the world. The compass rose emblem of the Church of the
Province of Southern Africa has at its centre a silver (or white) shield
bearing this cross and the letters CPSA; and the arms of the Diocese of
Port Elizabeth, too, are based on St. George's cross.
Legend or no, St George has left his mark on the English-speaking world.
PS: While St. George has always been a fighting man by reputation, his name
has quite a different meaning: the Greek name Giorgios means a husbandman, a
tiller of the soil. The popularity of the name George seems to have little
to do with its meaning: it symbolises England, and has become even more
popular since it was the name of four kings of Britain from the House of
Hanover and two more (of the House of Windsor) during the present century.
In America, it often honours George Washington.
Located by Mike Oettle, 21 January 2002
Note:
This statement is not strictly true. The Catholic Church has certainly
demoted St. George's Day from the Universal Calendar, but it remains in the
National Calendar of England and Wales. The 1962 Missal shows St. George's day as
a Memorial in what is now known as the Universal Calendar. My current Missal,
incorporating the post-Vatican II changes, shows it absent from the Universal
Calendar, but a Feast (not a mere Memorial) in the National Calendar for England
and - rather oddly - Wales. In that Calendar, St. George is correctly described
as the Patron Saint of England. I can assure you that he is still the Patron
Saint of ALL Englishmen, Catholics as well as Anglicans!
Thomas Teague, 5 June 2002
Collected by Pascal Gross, 24 April 2002
According to my quick count, St. George appears on 4 coats of arms (and flags) in Slovenia:
In the Croatian tradition St.George is connected with the flowering of the small white flowers of the lily-of-the-valley ("durdica" in Croatian in clear reference to St. George).
Željko Heimer, 24 April 2002