The Legend of Saint George
Throughout Europe in
the later middle ages the story of St. George was best known
in the form in which it was presented in the Legend Aurea of
Bd James de Voragine. William Caxton translated the work and
printed it. Therein we are told that St. George was a Christian
knight and that he was born in Cappadocia. It chanced, however,
that he was riding one day in the province of Lybia, and there
he came upon a city called Sylene, near which was a marshy swamp.
In this lived a dragon " which envenomed all the country".
The people had mustered together to attack and kill it, but its
breath was so terrible that all had fled. To prevent its coming
nearer they supplied it every day with two sheep, but when the
sheep grew scarce, a human victim had to be substituted. This
victim was selected by lot, and the lot just then had fallen
on the king's own daughter. No one was willing to take her place
and the maiden had gone forth dressed as a bride to meet her
doom. Then St. George, coming upon the scene, attacked the dragon
and transfixed it with his lance. Further , he borrowed the maiden's
girdle, fastened it round the dragon's neck, and with this aid
she led the monster captive into the city. "It followed
her as if it had been a meek beast and debonair." The people
in mortal terror were about to take to flight, but St. George
told them to have no fear. If only they would believe and be
baptized, he would slay the dragon. The king and all his subjects
gladly assented. The dragon was killed and four ox-carts were
needed to carry the carcass to a safe distance. "Then there
well XV thousand men baptized without women and children."
The king offered St. George great treasures, but he bade them
to be given to the poor instead. Before taking his leave the
good knight left behind four behests: that the king should maintain
churches, that he should honour priests, that he should himself
diligently attend religious services, and that he should show
compassion to the poor.
At this period under the Emperors
Diocletian and Maximian a great persecution began against the
Christians. George, seeing that some were terrified into apostasy,
in order to set a good example went boldly into a public place
and cried out, " All the gods of the paynims and gentiles
are devils. My God made the heavens and is very God." Datianus
the " provost" arrested him and failing to move him
by cajolery had him strung up and beaten with clubs and then
tortured with red-hot irons. Our Saviour, however, came in the
night to him to health. Next a magician was brought to prepare
a potion for George with deadly poison, but the draught took
no effect and the magician, being converted, himself died a martyr.
Then followed an attempt to crush the saint between two spiked
wheels, and after that to boil him death in a caldron of molten
lead: but without any result. So Datianus once more had recourse
to promise soft words, and George, pretending to be shaken, let
them think that he was willing to offer sacrifice. All the people
of the city assembled in the temple to witness the surrender
of this obstinate blasphemer of the gods; but George prayed,
and fire coming down from Heaven destroyed the building, the
idols and the heathen priests, while the earth opened at the
same time to swallow them up. Datianus's wife witnessing these
things was converted; but her husband ordered the saint to be
decapitated, which took place without difficulty, though Datianus
himself returning from the scene was consumed by fire from Heaven.
This is a comparatively mild version
of the Acts of St. George, which existed from an early date in
a great variety of forms. It should be noted, however, that the
story of the dragon, though given so much prominence, was a later
accretion, of which we have no sure traces before the twelfth
century. This puts out of court the attempts made by many folklorists
to present St. George as no more than a christianized survival
of pagan mythology, of Theseus, for example, or Hercules, the
former of whom vanquished the Minotaur, the latter the hydra
of Lerna. There is every reason to believe that St. George was
a real martyr who suffered at Diospolis ( i.e. Lydda) in Palestine,
probably before the time of Constantine. Beyond this there seems
to be nothing which can be affirmed with any confidence. The
cult is certainly early, though the martyr is not mentioned in
the Syriac " Breviarium ". But his name ( on April
25 ) is entered in the " Hieronymianum " and assigned
to Diospolis, and such pilgrims as Thedosius, the so-called Antoninus
and Arculf, from the sixth to the eighth century, all speak of
Lydda or Diospolis as the seat of the veneration of St. George
and as the resting place of his relics. The idea that St. George
was a Cappadocian and that his acta were compiled in Cappadocia
" is entirely the responsibility of the compiler of the
acta who confused the martyr with his namesake, the celebrated
George of Cappadocia, the Arian intruder into the see of Alexandria
and enemy of St. Athanasius" (Father H. Delehaye).
It is not quite clear how St. George came to be specially
chosen as the patron saint of England. His fame had certainly
traveled to the British Isles long before the Norman Conquest.
The Felire of Oengus, under April 23, speaks of " George
a sun of victories with thirty great thousands", while Abbot
Aelfric tells the whole extravagant story in a metrical homily.
William of Malmesbury states that Saints George and Demetrius
" the martyr knights", were seen assisting the Franks
at the battle of Antioch in 1908, and it seems likely that the
crusaders, notably King Richard I, came back from the east with
a great idea of the power of St. George's intercession. At the
national synod of Oxford in 1222 St. George's day was included
among the lesser holidays, and in 1415 the constitution of Archbishop
Chilchele made it one of the chief feasts of the year. In the
interval King Edward III had founded the Order of the Garter,
of which St. George has always been the patron. During the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries ( till 1778 ) his feast was a holiday
of obligation for English Catholics, and Pope Benedict XIV recognized
him as the Protector of the Kingdom.
From Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. 2, pp. 148-150.
"George, Martyr, Protector of the Kingdom of England"
