St George: Roman Soldier and Saint

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32637, 19 June 1971, Page 13

St George: Roman Soldier and Saint

(By

KENNETH ANTHONY)

One can appreciate why Ireland.adopted St Patrick as its patron saint, but exactly why England should ever have laid claim to St George is much harder to understand.

The saint was, in fact, a Roman soldier who is reputed to have been martyred for his Christian faith at Lydda, a place now in Israel, on April 23, in the year 303. Very little is known about him, and it was some time after his death that stories began to be told of St George, stories referring to him as a warrior hero who slew a dragon.

In his speech before battle. Shakespeare’s Henry V declares: ", . . the game’s afoot:

“Follow your spirit; and upon this charge “Cry ‘God for Harry, England and Saint George!’”

Yet St George certainly never set foot in England, and had no connection whatever with the British Isles.

It was the Crusaders who brought back the legend of St George from the Middle East. This is why, in his fight with the dragon, St George is often portrayed as a medieval knight in shining armour historically, a wholly inaccurate picture. The legend has become very widespread, and this is shown by the fact that the saint has been depicted on the stamps of a surprising number of countries. The first British stamp on which he appeared was a £1 value.

issued in 1929 for the Postal Union Congress. Nowadays it is a rare and expensive stamp, but the 10/- stamp illustrated here, issued in 1951, is much less costly. The design shows St George attired in a Roman cloak, attacking his adversary with a short sword—certainly a far more authentic portrait than the richly caparisoned horse and rider seen on German stamps issued in 1943. The country named after St George, like England, is a long way from the scene of his real-life martyrdom. Georgia, in trans-Caucasian Russia, enjoyed a brief independence from 1918 to 1923, before becoming part of the Soviet Union. In that period Georgia issued its own stamps, and a number of these have a somewhat sketchy portrait of St George and the dragon.

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