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A Bloody Cross
Tradition has it that, on April 23 in AD 303, a young and promising Roman soldier in the army of the Emperor Diocletian was beheaded after gruesome torture, and died professing his Christian faith to the end.
Very little is known of his life, but it’s believed he was born into a devout Christian family, perhaps in Cappadocia, an ancient district of Anatolia, somewhere between AD 270 and 280, and that he was raised at least partly in his mother’s home city of Lydda (Lod), in what is now central Israel.
After joining Diocletian’s army, he rose quickly, becoming a Tribune and then an Imperial Guard for the Emperor himself. When Diocletian announced in AD 303 that all Christians serving in the army must offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods, our hero refused.
Diocletian, uncharacteristically, stayed his hand for a bit, out of respect for his friendship with the young man’s father, but eventually had him cut to pieces on a wheel of swords, and then beheaded, on April 23, 303.
His body was buried in Lydda, and a shrine was erected to his memory in the church there. One hundred ninety one years later, he was canonized as a saint by Pope Gelasius I, being among those “whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.”
Over time, as is wont to happen with those who die so bravely and so publicly, a legend built up, and began to surround, our hero. By the 12th and 13th centuries, it was codified in several manuscripts, most famously in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voraigne, the Archbishop of Genoa.
In the best tradition of medieval story-telling, the Archbishop’s account involves a knight, a lady, and a dragon. It goes like this:
A town in what is now modern-day Libya once lived in thrall to a large dragon which inhabited the pond outside its walls. Only by sending one or two sheep each day to placate it, could the townspeople stay safe and keep the dragon confined to its pond.
Eventually, they ran out of sheep to feed it, so they moved on to the next best thing that was in plentiful supply.
Women.
Every day, the town held a lottery. The poor girl drawing the short straw was sent outside the city walls to be consumed by the beast.
One sad day, the king’s daughter drew the short straw. But, never fear! Because that’s the day our 
young man came riding along, saw the princess who was being led outside the city walls to her fate, and intervened. As Jacobus de Voragine tells it:
[He] drew out his sword and garnished him with the sign of the cross, and rode hardily against the dragon which came towards him, and smote him with his spear and hurt him sore and threw him to the ground. And after said to the maid: Deliver to me your girdle, and bind it about the neck of the dragon and be not afeard. When she had done so the dragon followed her as it had been a meek beast and debonair.”
Once he and the maid led the dragon inside the city walls, our hero converted the king and his people to Christianity, won the heart of the princess, and only then did he finally slay the dragon.
And they all lived happily ever after. Except the dragon, of course.
At the same time that our young man’s chivalric exploits were being celebrated and recorded, his reputation as a military saint was growing by leaps and bounds.
Richard the Lionheart placed himself under his protection during the Third Crusade, and the Frankish army at the Siege of Antioch, in 1098, was strengthened by his apparition, which appeared to them just before the final battle. Over the first part of the twelfth century, as a red cross on a white background began to be associated first with the Knights Templar, and by the end of the century with English soldiers, the symbol also began to represent our young man, eventually becoming the unmistakable designation for a Crusader the world over.
Meanwhile, among the royalty and courts of Europe, our hero’s martyrdom and faith was recognized far and wide as he was named the patron saint of, among others, Malta, Romania, Aragon, and Catalonia; as the savior of Portugal, and as the knight under whose banner the English Order of the Garter was formed. In 1222 the Synod of Oxford elevated April 23, his feast day, to special prominence in the Church calendar, essentially placing England under the protection of this warrior saint.
The most detailed and lengthy exposition of his maturation as a warrior saint, which takes the form of an epic English poem, is told in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Therein can be found our hero, a young knight-in-training, at the start, who, though a series of adventures, trials, and tribulations, learns his true purpose in life, which is to personify holiness by fighting for the one true Church (in post-Henry VIII England, this would have been the Protestant Church), and to defeat evil in all its forms. Along the way, he has many adventures and meets many interesting folk. (I don’t really like Spenser’s poetry, and wonder if there has ever been a more labored, and less subtle, allegorist in all of English literature. In addition, he is utterly devoid of the warmth, the common touch, and the sense of humor of his literary antecedent Geoffrey Chaucer, and of his contemporary, William Shakespeare. But I digress).
We meet “Redcrosse” early in the poem, first accompanied by the virtuous lady Una (good woman, chastity, the one true Church), before he falls into the toils of Duessa (bad woman, falsity, the devil). And on and on. That’s just how Spenser is. Eventually, Una rescues the poor fellow from the Cave of Despair and takes him to the House of Holiness, where he does penance and is purged of his sins. Finally (and I do mean finally (although this is only Book One of six and a half–Spenser having died before he completed the anticipated twelve, a small mercy if you’re an old-style college English major)), he is told by the wise hermit, Contemplation, that his destiny is to become a great saint, the patron saint of England, in fact, and that his name is not actually “Redcrosse,” but, rather–
St. George’s Day, April 23, 2017
#adayforengland
Published in History
The Spenserian stanza is a good idea, though!
Thank you for the great post!
If only it had been devised by someone else . . . .
Happy St. George’s Day. Also the day of Shakespeare’s death and reputedly the day of his birth.
A Blessed St. George’s Day! (and Divine Mercy Sunday, as well)…He’s the patron of my dear Melkite priest-friend’s parish in Milwaukee; thanks for the reminder to call him!
in hoc signo vinces
Veritas.
…et Sapientia. Gratias a tibi!
I like this post a lot.
Each to her/his own. I read the Faerie Queene all unbid and by my own will and I fell under Spenser’s spell.
A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,
Ycladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde
Long may he ride.
Yeah. I love the stories. My métier is earlier, though. “My” knight is this one:
“A knyght ther was and that a worthy man
That fro the tyme that he first bigan
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
Trouthe and honour, fredom, and curteisie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre,
As wel in cristendom as in hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthynesse;
. . . .
He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde
In al his lyf unto no maner wight.
He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.”
Geoffrey Chaucer, Knight’s Prologue, Canterbury Tales
What prompted you to pick up the Faerie Queene and start reading?
R> is home to many such, it seems; and how fortunate are we!
Love this! I always wondered why the dragon seems to be wearing a leash, never knew it was the “maiden’s girdle’.
Yes! (I don’t think we ever find out exactly what happens to it, or where it ends up after the dragon is slain, though . . . .)
She,
For Harry, England, and St. George!!!
Regards,
Jim
One Sunday many years ago, I was in Lod to go shopping and decided to visit the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George. The building is mostly from the 19th century, with a few medieval remnants. The medieval church was much larger, as it was a prominent pilgrimage stop on the way to Jerusalem, and a few parts of that building can still be seen in the mosque next door. Upon entering, one encounters an icon of St. George, but the glass was somewhat smeared with lipstick, so I hope St. George will forgive me for not venerating it in the usual way. Down a short flight of stairs is a cenotaph with an elaborate marble carving depicting the saint.
As I appeared to be a visitor, one of the congregants greeted me. He told me that St. George was previously buried here, “but the Latins stole the relics.” From his tone, this might have occurred two weeks earlier rather than 800 years ago. According to the little booklet in Greek about the history of the church, it does possess a few bone fragments purportedly from the saint.
To my knowledge, this is the only Christian church in Lod.
Nice! April 23rd is also the day on which William Shakespeare was born and died. I’d rather quote him.
I still prefer to think of St. George slaying a Welsh dragon. Libya just won’t do.
It can be a Welsh dragon if you wish. Around here, we take our stories seriously, but not always literally.
You can’t take them literally when most of them arose from preliterate societies.
Someone once asked me if I found all the variants of the Arthurian legends annoying. “Heck no! That’s half the fun! Everyone who has ever told the tales told their own versions of them.”
Except for that hack Malory. He got the whole grail thing wrong.
My point (or one of them) exactly.
Not only was he a hack, rumor has it that the was a thief, a kidnapper and a rapist, for starters. Glorious stories, though.
Mr She and I once spent a week in “Arthur country” at the foot of Mount Snowdon in Wales. Not to be confused with Arthur country in Tintagel, Glastonbury, Winchester, Roxburgh or Wormelow Tump.
Nota Bene:
George wasn’t from Libya, though his mother was said to have been from Lydda, which is today in Israel.
https://orthodoxwiki.org/George_the_Trophy-bearer
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_George&oldid=61244612
That was an inside baseball Chrétien de Troyes joke — a little obscure, even for me.
The experts are not entirely agreed that that Thomas Malory was the Thomas Malory, but it seems likely.
From the facebook page of Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick – the relics of St. George in Lydda, which are said to be myrh-streaming (that’s the oil you see pooled on top).
A blessed St. George’s Day, All!