St. George

April 23 is the feast of St. George, the early fourth-century martyr venerated from England to Palestine. The Acts of his passion are historically thin — the Depositio martyrum of 354 already lists him — but the cult spread rapidly. By the fifth century he was honoured at his traditional tomb in Lydda (Diospolis), where the Church of St. George still stands near Tel Aviv, and his feast appears in the early Roman Sacramentary.

The dragon legend — the maiden rescued from a beast that had terrorized a city — is first recorded in the 11th-century Georgian Balavariani and reached the West in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1260). The dragon became the icon of George: the knight on horseback, the lance, the rescued princess, are repeated in countless altarpieces, banners, and tavern signs. The legend is not history, but it captured the late medieval imagination and made George the patron of soldiers, of England, of Venice, of Genoa, of Catalonia, and of Portugal.

The English adoption of George as patron — replacing Edward the Confessor — was the work of King Edward III, who founded the Order of the Garter on St. George's Day 1348 and dedicated the chapel of Windsor to him. St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle remains the mother chapel of the order. From Canterbury to Ramsgate, where Pugin built the shrine of St. Augustine, the English patron is honoured on April 23.