The Ancients - Saint George

Episode Date: April 24, 2022

The 23rd of April marks Saint George's Day - but who are we actually celebrating? Is there any truth behind the myth of the man who slew the dragon and rescued the princess - and where does the Patron Saint of England actually come from? Spoiler alert - it's not where you think.In this episode Tristan travelled to the Lancashire Archives to talk to Dr Sam Riches, from Lancaster University, about all things Saint George. Religious origins, centuries old cults, and farm animals going on a day out to the local church - there's more to Saint George than the well known myth.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, well, yesterday, Saturday the 23rd of April, it was St George's Day in England.

But who was St George? Well, this a huge topic and I went up specially last week to interview a leading expert on the life and legacy particularly the legacy of St George, this international saint up in Preston. She is Dr Sam Riches from Lancaster University. She is absolutely wonderful. It was great to meet in person, to do this interview in person, and it's absolutely riveting. I can guarantee you're going to absolutely love this one because it's such an amazing topic to see how St. George is viewed across the world. As mentioned, he's an international saint.

We might think of him with the dragon, with saving the princess in England today, but elsewhere he's primarily associated with other things such as farming, such as healing, such as water. You see Saint George in places such as Ethiopia, in Lebanon, in Georgia, in Malta. There's even a festival in Belgium. You're going to be learning all about this in today's podcast episode with Sam. So without further ado, to explain all about the legacy of St. George and why he is actually such an amazing force for positivity, for inclusivity, for integrity in this modern world. To explain all, here's Sam. Sam, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. Absolutely delighted to be here. Thanks, Tristan.

I mean, and we're doing it in person, which is even better, up at Preston at the Archives. And to talk about St George, because Sam, St George, one of the world's most recognised saints, but also perhaps one of the most, at times, misunderstood and misappropriated too. I'd certainly agree with you in the first part there. He is a universal saint. However, I think that as English people, we perhaps have a very particular sense of him, and that's where the misunderstandings and misappropriations perhaps have arisen. the misunderstandings and misappropriations perhaps have arisen because in my study of St George and how he's received in other parts of the world I don't find that he is understood as an incredibly positive figure with one or two quite minor exceptions but the unease that English people have found in relation to St George is very palpable, it's very real, but nevertheless I think it's quite a small element of our understanding of his cult overall.

Well I'm excited to delve into all of this, especially as you mentioned this universal nature of St George, but first of all with the background, if we go back to antiquity, to the ancient period, if we talk about the historical St George, because Sam, who was St George? If only we knew. The problem with St George is that there is no original text, no urtext, as you might say. Everything that we know about St George is something that somebody has essentially invented.

So there is no evidence that anybody with a name of George or a name like George existed. What we can say is that from the middle of the fourth century, there is evidence of churches in Syria dedicated to St. George, but we don't know it's the same St. George. It could be simply a coincidence of naming. And we don't have information there about why this particular individual was held up as a saint. So for me, the interesting question is what have people believed rather than trying to uncover a genuine historical figure because I feel that's actually a quest that's doomed to failure. And so what did these early followers of George,

what did they believe were the elements of his story shall we say? If we can look back from probably the 7th century, then if there's any sense of feeling confident that people in the 4th century, early 4th century is the date ascribed to St George, if we can feel at all confident about what people believed his early adherence, then he was a holy man, possibly a martyr. The martyrdom legend gets going quite quickly. Certainly not a dragon slayer. That idea comes much later. But what the holy man did is an interesting question. There's one tradition which somebody tore down an edict outlawing Christianity. And that was at Nicomedia Cathedral I think of him as almost like Martin Luther in reverse so Martin Luther nails up the 95 theses this person who may be St George rips down the edict from the door of the cathedral and yet there is really no evidence that that happened. It's a nice story. It makes sense in internal logic of why somebody would be martyred by a heathen emperor for that kind of activity.

But the dating is all wrong. The names ascribed are wrong. So Diocletian is given as a name of an emperor associated with St George that doesn't fit we also have Dacian that's a particularly popular name for the medieval traditions that doesn't fit either so it's all rather a mystery but nevertheless we have this tremendously important figure who arises out of these very murky beginnings and you also mentioned Nicomedia there which is in Anatolia, so modern day Turkey. And I think that's another thing that I'd love to highlight straight away. So fact or fiction, this George, which they believed in, he hailed from that area of the ancient world, from the Eastern Mediterranean area, did he? I'd certainly agree Eastern Mediterranean,

but I always have a wry smile when I see St George being held up as Turkish figure, because you're quite right the way you put it. It's modern day Turkey. But there is equally a strong tradition linking him to Palestine. So Lida, or modern day Lod, is often understood to be the place of his death and sometimes the place of his birth as well. And that's where the ultimate shrine of Saint George is. So he's somewhere around the eastern Mediterranean but I think it's really difficult to be more precise

than that. Nevertheless there are a lot of competing traditions which place him there. Similarly though there are Coptic traditions, there's a Nubian tradition that take him in a slightly different direction. Lots of names get ascribed to his parents. He gets talked about as being a member of the Roman army or as the Praetorian guard. But this is all essentially building a house of sand. Fair enough. Well, let's delve therefore into the legacy. Let's start. And I know we've kind of mentioned it, but let's go into a bit more detail about it. The origins of the cult of St. George. I mean, do we know how it really starts getting going in the following centuries? Again, it's fairly obscure. What's really interesting for me, though, is when I

hear people say, sometimes declaiming with great authority, that St. George was brought to England by the Crusaders, St. George was brought to England by the Normans. They're overlooking very clear evidence that there is a cult in Britain much earlier. And I say Britain advisedly because the earliest evidence is actually from Scotland. is actually from Scotland. I'd never claim that St George was a particularly powerful or popular saint within Britain before the Norman conquest but nevertheless he is here, he's recognised here. So for instance the church of St George at Doncaster comes to mind, that's founded before the Norman conquest we've got references to elements of his story in Bede in Alfred is our first version of a legend of Saint George where in very importantly he is a holy man that is how he is described by Alfred so I think we've got something which builds from, again, rather obscure origins. But when the Normans arrive, they are reinforcing a cult that is already here.

And by this point, they are understanding him to be a soldier rather than simply a holy man. Now, I definitely love to get into that more Western Europe and England in a bit and Britain as you say but is it quite interesting to note there how it seems as if the story of Saint George it spread westward as it were from the eastern Mediterranean over those following centuries let's say in late antiquity in the early medieval period it's a sixth fifth fourth centuries is it fair to say that there does seem to have been this westward spread of it I think it's, but it's difficult to be definitive about it. As ever, we're dealing with partial evidence, we're dealing with accidental survivals. Some of the most important early writing about St George hasn't turned up until the 20th century. So the creation of the Aswan Dam, for instance, that unearthed some very early writings which mention

St George. And again, is it the same St George? Is it a different St George? We don't know. But my general sense is that, yes, it is a cult that starts in the Eastern Mediterranean and it spreads westwards through Europe. Well, we'll delve into those various countries where he becomes really interesting, shall we say, in a moment. But I'm sure people are shouting at the moment and saying, what about the dragon? What about the dragon? So what do we know about when the dragon story starts becoming attached to St George's story? The earliest reference to a dragon is used apparently in a metaphorical sense. So if memory serves, it's an 8th century version of the life of St George, where he's on trial for his refusal to

renounce Christianity. And the heathen emperor is described as being a dragon. So our understanding, I think, is that the writer wanted us to think of the heathen emperor as being very dangerous, beyond the pale of polite society, certainly outside of the realms of Christianity. on some ideas of Christ as a dragon slayer, which isn't a big part of his cult, but we can see some ideas in Book of Revelation, the dragons that arise there, for instance. And of course, St. Michael is a very well-recognized dragon slayer. It isn't all that he does. Of course, he's got other aspects to his cult, but George seems to kind of almost magnetically attract some of those ideas. I think it's worth noting that as far as we're aware, every recorded human culture has a version of the story of the hero overcoming the monster. And in some, if not most, hero overcomes monster to rescue girl christianity is very good at adopting and

adapting aspects of pre-existing traditions so it's almost as if christianity really needed a good dragon slayer in order to fulfill that almost psychic need that apparently humanity has to be able to divide the light from the dark, the good from the evil. In some ways also, particularly later on, we have St George as a symbol of chastity and the dragon as a symbol of sexuality, particularly base, evil sexuality. So it's a tremendously helpful aspect of his cult. And I think that's ultimately why it's there. So as I said earlier with Aelfric, there is no mention of a dragon at all. So that's our first version in English. But by the time we get into the later medieval English versions of the life of St. George and indeed a medieval Scottish version.

The dragon story is well established, but it kind of floats about. So it's unclear the order of events. So we have St. George being recognised as a martyr and being killed because of his refusal to renounce Christianity. But did he kill the dragon first or did he kill the dragon afterwards? He's associated with resurrection. That's a strong element of the story of St George as a martyr. So it's quite helpful because it allows you as the writer, the author of these lives to kind of shuffle the pack as it were. And also I think it underlines for me the sense that these medieval authors and their audiences didn't need to have a strict chronology. They were quite comfortable with almost a pick and mix approach.

So different ideas that could be appealing or useful to different individuals. individuals. So hence it's possible, certainly in the late medieval period, to have a visual presentation of the legend of St George that makes no reference at all to him as a martyr. But at the same time, we can find something else almost exactly the same date, where it's nearly all about him being a martyr and the dragon's story is very restricted. It's just a small element of the whole. Well, it seems like a St. George, the extended edition or something like that with the dragon story. Sometimes it's bolted on. It's not core, shall we say, to the story for many of these versions. And I guess that's key to stress, you know, these various versions of the George story that emerge in the centuries following the 400s.

Absolutely right. Yes. It's almost like the director's cut, except I think the key element we need to bear in mind is who's paying. Who's paying for this story to be written, for it to be depicted, and what is it that's of interest to them? So if I may stray into the 15th century, one of the most interesting versions of the life of St George that we have surviving. The version we've got in the British Library is in Dugdale's Book of Monuments. And this is a visual record from just before the English Civil War. And it records stained glass, which is lost. So the glass we know is from about 1450, Stanford in Lincolnshire.

It is Church of St George that is visited by a man called William Bruges, who is the garter king of arms. So he's the foremost herald in the country. And he is specifically associated with the Order of the Garter, which, of course, we know is founded in particularly in devotion to St. George. So William Bruges, for some reason, is in Stanford. He sees this church of St George is not in good order so he spends a lot of money on improving it and one of the things he does is to have a new glazing scheme installed in the chancel and thank goodness for William Dugdale and his limner William Sedgwick they recorded the glass or at least they recorded

most of the glass. They seem to be primarily interested in the founder nights of the Order of the Garter, which were depicted on the lower level of each light. But the upper level has an image from the life of St George. And we've unfortunately lost the very beginning of the story. I'd love to know what it is. The first image that survived through Doug Dale and Sedgwick's work, I don't even understand it. Nobody knows what it's about. St. George in front of a well with a woman lying on the ground, St. George's brandishing sword. No idea what's going on there at all. through the written record, but has survived in about five visual accounts, all late medieval. The story was very much put together by the great M.R. James, now most known, of course, as a ghost story writer, but a wonderful medievalist. The story is essentially that St. George is captured in battle. He is beheaded because he refuses to recount, to give up his Christianity, but

specifically because he's very devoted to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary then resurrects him, arms him as her champion, and then he goes out and slays the dragon. And we're into then the familiar story of St George baptising the people of the city that he rescues from the dragon. So he is essentially a knight-errant who is doing the Virgin Mary's work, he is converting people to Christianity. And then the story proceeds at Stanford into him as a martyr, and there are many very gruesome images of him being tortured on the rack, him being tortured on the wheel, being sawn in half, flayed, all sorts of things are going on there. And I find it fascinating to ponder William Bruges as the commissioner of this work. He clearly knows things about St George, but the dragon story

is not only just one of those things, but it is not the most important thing. It's really St George, but the dragon story is not only just one of those things, but it is not the most important thing. It's really St George as the megalomata, as he's sometimes known, is what seems to have attracted Bruges' attention. Equally, it could be that he left very sketchy instructions about what he wanted in this glazing. And ultimately artist did their best got quite a big sequence of windows to fill what can we put in access potentially to a very complex written life of St George that has lots and lots of images of martyrdom that are being invoked there so this then gets translated into visual form so you have to be careful about imputing too much to the commissioner, because ultimately they may just be primarily concerned about how much it's going to cost,

rather than the niceties of actually what's going to be depicted. And I'm going to focus on these other things now, because you mentioned medieval England, 15th century England, that that example was. But we have many other cases of this from across the world from before then. I'm going to sweep the 15th century England rug from under you just for the moment. We will get back there soon. But as you mentioned, you know, the dragon is just one part, one thing that he's associated with slaying the dragon. But what are the other things that George is associated with across the world?

What are some of the main other things? The theme of water seems to be quite strong with St. George. George is associated with across the world? What are some of the main other things? The theme of water seems to be quite strong with St George. We've almost lost it in England. There's a couple of survivals, you could argue. So Padstow and its obvios on May Day is well known. But there's also a song which is relating to May Day festivities, which talks about St George being out in his longboat. It's entirely unclear why he's out in his longboat. But if I just draw your attention to the naming of St George's Channel in that part of the world off the West Coast, we've got these little, little hints. And there's this idea, interesting, you mentioned earlier about the legend of St George going from east to west. But there's also some ideas of St George traveling from west to east and St George's channel seems to

potentially be part of that naming I've had a very interesting discussion with somebody who was familiar with the Brazilian cults and they talked about St George visiting Brazil with his wife Joan of Arc and then bringing her back to Europe. So this west to east movement was something that they were very conscious of. But going back to the topic of water, St George has wells and springs of course, but also he's strongly associated, particularly in central and eastern Europe, with May Day festivities and the turning of the year. So a green George, as it's known, will be put into water, into a river or a stream. It's a way of invoking ideas of fertility and blessing the land. Of course, it seems to be something that's coming from outside Christianity originally.

But yeah, the figure of the green man that many of us are familiar with is something which is loosely described as pagan. It seems to have a direct link into St. George. If we temporarily stray outside of Christianity to St. George's equivalent in Islam, it's particularly the Sufi tradition of Islam, is a folkloric figure called Al-Qudr, which is the green one. Amongst many other things that Al-Qudr does, he brings the rain. He's associated with healing, with fertility of land and people. We get, particularly back in Eastern Europe, we get the blessings of cows and other kind of domestic animals, livestock on St George's Day, they will be sprinkled with holy water. That may or may not be a specifically St George idea,

but I find that if you bring together these little pieces of evidence, what we're finding is quite a powerful image of a saint who is quite removed from the dragon slayer and is much more associated with the land, with farming, with fertility. Notice his name. It's something that the golden legend does beautifully, of course, is to tell us what the name means of all the different figures that are discussed in that great compendium. And George is a farmer, a cultivator, a tiller of the soil. Golden legend author then just moves on, doesn't tell us how this relates to the story that comes afterwards. But it's very striking that even into the 20th century, there's good, particularly oral history evidence from the Slavic areas,

oral history evidence from the Slavic areas, from the far north of Europe, of St George still being seen as a hugely powerful figure that you want to invoke to protect your crops, to protect your livestock. Well let's therefore focus on some of these countries now Sam and let's keep on the name first of all. You mentioned the name and of, there is one country that has that in its name, isn't it? Georgia. So, I mean, I'm guessing the cult of St. George, is it quite prominent in Georgia to this day? It's wonderfully prominent. For quite a long time, I thought they liked St. George so much they named themselves after him. But actually, that's not true. They just have a wonderful coincidence. But they absolutely absolutely adore St George to the extent that they have two St George's Days a year and I was lucky enough to get to Tbilisi the capital of Georgia for their winter St George's Day a few years ago 23rd of November and it was a fascinating

experience because when I went to the tourist office on arrival and announced I'd come for St George's Day and where did they recommend I should go to? The reaction that I had was mystification. And I thought I'd made a terrible mistake and very expensive mistake traveling all the way to Tbilisi only to see nothing whatsoever. But the reality was there was lots going on for St. George's Day, but nobody thought it was anything special. It was just normal it's what we do and the best equivalent I can come up with is if someone came here to Preston on Christmas Eve and went to the tourist office and said I've come to see Christmas

where do I go what would we tell them we wouldn't know what to tell them because Christmas and the way that we keep Christmas in England is so much part of our natural way of being that we don't really ever pause to think about it as a ritual. So I went along to the St George's Chapel that thankfully I was quite closely by on the eve of St George because I knew that in Orthodox tradition it was likely to be my best chance of seeing anything and it was a heaving mass of humanity we had all kinds of things happening there we had relics being paraded we had blessings of special bread huge numbers of invocations of St George and all sorts of levels. I went back the next day

on the feast itself thinking it might be quieter but it was busier. It was wonderful and the most exciting thing for me was here I was in a capital city and people were bringing farm animals for a blessing. I have a lovely photograph of a delightful woman who had her cockerel under her arm and she was walking it around the outside of the chapel in order to stop at various locations and have essentially a blessing pronounced. extremely reluctant. It really didn't want to be there. But it was evidence that it was seen as part of what you do to get your animals through the winter. I was able to talk to one person who had a cockerel with her and I asked if it was intended for the pot and she was completely horrified by this. No, not at all. It's about ensuring the fertility of the cockerel going into the spring when it comes. Absolutely wonderful. And something that I couldn't have envisaged at all, that this folkloric ritual would be enacted and seen as just part of ordinary life.

So is farming the main thing that St George is associated with in Georgia? I'm not sure about that. Unfortunately, we've got very little written in English that's accessible about the history and traditions of Georgia. I have read a 400-page book about the history of Georgia, which I think mentioned St George three times in total. And then it tended to be to do with the date on which something had happened. So I wasn't able to, and it's fascinating, but well worth a read.

It wasn't able to give me what I needed, which was, this is how the cult of St. George has manifested itself in Georgia. which was this is how the cult of St. George has manifested itself in Georgia. So that is a job that somebody still has to undertake. And I fervently hope that they will, because Georgia is one of two countries that claims to be the longest unbroken tradition of Christianity in the world. The other one is Ethiopia. And where is St. George hugely popular? Ethiopia. And where is St. George hugely popular? Ethiopia, in both places. And he is seen, certainly in Ethiopia, as being a native. So he's presented as a black saint. And there are locations where he did things, where he healed people. He's invoked in various ways. I don't know that he's seen as a native Georgian, but I strongly suspect that he is. And I would love to be in a position to do a proper comparison of the cults in those

two countries. Well, Sam, take it away. We're going to do some globe travelling now of where St George is popular outside of Britain before we get to England. So you mentioned Ethiopia. This is a really interesting case. Talk me through George's portrayal, his importance, what we know about the aspects of St. George in Ethiopia to this day. He is very popular. He is understood as indispensable. So, for instance, I have a lovely beer bottle with the label on it from the St.'s Brewery and the label is in Amharic but the translation I am assured is the everyday choice and that's not because St George beer is humdrum it is because you cannot manage without it and there's a wonderful expression from Lebanon which marries very well with it.

I was so excited when I came across it in an obscure article about the cult of St. George in Lebanon. I sort of screamed and probably really disturbed people in the library where I was sitting. But the phrase is, God is great, but he's not like St. George. St. George is who you go to all the time for everything that you need. So whether you have lost something, whether you're undertaking a journey, whether you are going to be needing to ensure that your child is born healthy, whatever it is, St George is absolutely the person for the job. In fact, there's even sometimes a feeling that he gets a bit tired and overburdened because everyone is going to him all the time for help. You find this amongst Palestinian Christians as well. So I've had some really interesting discussion with a

Palestinian Christian where he's able to tell me about a really strong personal devotion to St. George within their family. So their father-in-law completely credits St George with having cured them from an illness there's accounts of St George appearing and saving someone who was falling going into hospital and pulling somebody's dislocated limb back into place. It is absolutely graphic. It's hands-on. It's so far removed from the kind of ethereal sense that we might have of saints in the British tradition, the English tradition. It's corporeal. St George manifests in person and does things. So I think this sense of St George in Ethiopia fits into that very much that Eastern Mediterranean model. They like him so much that there is a special form of the cross, which is particular for St. George.

The World Heritage site with the oldest rock buildings that we have. So these are carved out of the rock. What is the church there? It's St George. He is everywhere to the extent that he's just invoked as a matter of course. Another example that's coming to mind for me from Mediterranean slightly further west but in Malta they are absolutely obsessed with St George on the island of Gozo. They parade a particular sculpture on St George's Day and various sculptures get paraded at different points but for the St George sculpture there is a special walk that the carriers, the image carriers have. So obviously they're keeping in step with one another and need

to be careful not to drop this very very large heavy, heavy image. But there is a rhythm to it, a pattern which is unique. And to be able to take part as a carrier of St George is almost the highest accolade that you can achieve in that community. So I think that we've got something which is both ordinary and everyday, but also incredibly special. It's this wonderful paradox. Hi there, I'm Kate Lister, sex historian and author, and I am the host of Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society,

a new podcast from History Hit. The History of Sex, Scandal and Society, a new podcast from History Hit. Join me as I root around the topics which have been skipped over in your school history lessons. Everything from the history of swearing to pubic hair, satanic panic, cults, there is nothing off limits. We'll be bed hopping around different time periods, from ancient civilisations to the Middle Ages to Renaissance and early modern right up to now. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. It's absolutely fascinating. I mean, just before we really go even further west i mean although it's not a key part of the story for many of these places the slaying of the dragon story let's say the version in ethiopia i'm guessing the location of where he might have

slayed the dragon would be somewhere closer to ethiopia or if it's in georgia be closer to georgia or lebanon maybe even Malta. So I'm guessing there are various versions of where he slays the dragon, depending on where he is and what he represents. Completely. Yes. He's a very localized saint. So in England, we've got five different locations for the dragon slaying. And there's one in Wales as well. So if you're in Germany, he has slain the dragon in Germany, similarly in the Netherlands, similarly in Belgium, pretty much everywhere you go. I don't know enough about Ethiopia to be absolutely certain. I am conscious that there's a strong tradition of the dragon being

slayed in Libya. And so it may be that they sort of just adopt that. And so it's somewhere a bit over there, as opposed to right where we're standing now. But it is certainly a very, very strong motif that the dragon slaying is on our soil, and he is one of us. Is this, I think, one of the big points to take from this? We talked about Georgia and Ethiopian depth. You've mentioned Malta. I mentioned Lebanon there. You mentioned Germany. So all these places.

Is it really important and really interesting to stress how in all of these places, St. George, the figure of St. George, he's seen as an overwhelmingly positive figure who's integral to the beliefs of these people? Absolutely right. I think the best example I can give you is from Belgium. So the town of Mons, depending how you like to pronounce it. In the British understandings, we would most strongly associate that with the First World War. But actually, they have a wonderful UNESCO recognised festival, which goes on for an entire week. And it is based around

Trinity Sunday. And it's all to do with the Black Death. So we're going right the way back into the 14th century, and the people of Monne paraded relics, including a relic of St George, in order to spare their city from the predations of the Black Death, and it worked. So they've done it ever since. Trinity Sunday is the day to be there, I would say, although there is an entire week of ideas around it. And initially it was a parade, but then it grew and somebody very cleverly noticed, oh, we have a relic of St George. Why don't we reenact the battle between St George and the dragon? And so you have this battle between St George and the dragon and so you have this absolutely stunning festival which includes very localized ideas about how George and the dragon interact strikingly

St George kills the dragon by shooting it with a gun the sense that St George is from Mon. He's a native. No red cross on a white field there at all. His colours is often associated with the colour yellow. Again, it's a huge privilege if you're chosen to act the part of St George. You have to be very good horsemen. Then the dragon has a whole series of beliefs around it. There are helpers on either side. So St George has his kind of posse. And then the dragon has a posse so that you've got lots of action going on in this city's main square. George also, before he takes on the dragon, he has to oversee the parade of the relics around the city and there's a particular quite dangerous element where the lead party is in a carriage that has to be pulled up a cobbled ramp and disaster will befall if it doesn't go up in one and so St George is there and he is

urging on the horses who are pulling the relics in the carriage. And inevitably, of course, it's successful. So St George has a really, really busy day on Trinity Sunday. And when I was there, it was estimated a quarter of a million people were in Mon for this festival. It is just beyond anything that I'd ever witnessed. Even people turning out in Tbilisi, I'd say, was the numbers. The numbers were just incredible. Of course, it's a fantastic opportunity to drink a lot of beer and to celebrate the local identity. St George is perhaps a convenient hook on which to hang their civic pride on that occasion. But it is overwhelmingly positive. There's nothing I saw at all in any of the reading

that I've done about this festival did I see anything where anyone was giving pause over what does this mean and why are we doing this it's an evolving tradition so somebody in the I think the mid-20th century realized it'd be good to get women characters a bit more prominent. So there are now female figures who represent the city, the past of the city, the future of the city. They interact with St George. It's not just about him rescuing the maiden. It's much more subtle than that. And if you've got any plans at all to visit Belgium, I would strongly recommend making sure that you're there. Trinity Sunday. Damn, this is great great I'm literally adding locations to my travel list right now Tbilisi and the like I mean if we mentioned every country where Saint George is prominent has a really interesting presence I

feel we'd be here for hours so we will move on now but one last tangent because you did actually mention this earlier you mentioned Brazil and Latin America, because I know we talk about Eastern Mediterranean and Tbilisi, Georgia and the like, but going west of the Atlantic Ocean to Latin America, Saint George is also popular there too. He is extremely popular, but he is not without challenges. Really interesting situation in Brazil. So Saint Sebastian is the official patron saint of Rio de Janeiro, but St. George is the unofficial patron saint. Hugely popular, but not exclusively Christian. So he is recognised in four of the five major world religions. Buddhism is the one that eludes me.

Versions of St. George appear in all of the others but also the syncretic religion candomblé which is a version of voodoo essentially so it's coming out of west africa not from a christian tradition but it's got mixed in with some christianity in brazil and it's the figure of saint george is strongly associated with Ogham, who is a figure of war or violence or aggression, these sorts of ideas. And in the last few years, there's been a very popular soap opera on television, the name of which translates as Hail St George. The central character is somebody doing good works you could almost say a holy man perhaps whose name is George it's set in the favelas and it seems to be universally a good idea you would assume but there's been a campaign by the Catholic Church against this soap opera and saying that people who watch it will burn in hell which we say some particularly extreme elements of extremely worryingly negative because of his

ability or his recognition moving between different religious traditions and almost as a bit of a shapeshifter. Wow that's quite interesting isn't it? I think we'll delve into that a bit more now we get to England those different views as it were St. George's, his reputation with the Catholic Church, it hasn't always been plain sailing, hasn't it? There's sometimes been controversy around his story. Absolutely. If you go back to Pope Gelasius, 5th century, that was the first index of forbidden books and the life of St. George was on it because it was seen as too fantastical. There were too many references to resurrections and to totally improbable things that were happening. Putting Life of St George on the Index didn't achieve anything that it was intended. In fact, it became more popular,

perhaps in consequence, perhaps just as a coincidence. But there's something about St George that when attempts have been made to try to make him more acceptable or more appropriate, that he kind of pops out around the edges. There's more always than meets the eye. So the tradition that sometimes I'm asked about, and by no means an expert on this, but is the mumming tradition of St. George. So this is in England. Arguably, it's a Victorian reimagining as opposed to a persistence of old folkloric traditions. But what's really, really striking, unless you're going to look at very recent reimaginings, St. George is not a dragon slayer in the mumming tradition. He is a soldier who fights an enemy.

The Black Prince of Paradigm is one example and is killed and is resurrected. So it's straight back to those early ideas of St. George being killed and resurrected and then killed again and resurrected again and triumphing, transcending over the vagaries of the human body and human existence. And I find that really fascinating because if you just looked at the mumming tradition in isolation without any knowledge of the wider understandings of St George, it would seem that somebody somewhere had just made a mistake and that they'd attributed the name St George to a figure that is nothing to do with the dragon slayer.

But actually, what you've got is just a variation on some very well-established themes. It is so, so interesting, isn't it? And I love the idea. There's something about St. George. There's definitely got to be a historical documentary series with that title. It's going to happen one day.

Well, now let's delve into St. George and England. We've already talked about how, you mentioned the cult of St. George, it seems to come over in the Anglo-Saxon period and those first few mentions and churches dedicated to St. George. So let's go to the Norman conquest post 1066 period now because I mean Sam as we reach this part of the medieval period how do we see George being depicted being represented what's his importance in England in the Norman

period and onwards? Absolutely the first image that we have that still survives to us of St George is as a crusader so he's battling a human enemy he's shown as what we would recognize as a knight so he is on a horse this is a tympanum so a sculpture to fit over a doorway from Damham which is either Wiltshire or Hampshire depending where you draw the boundary and that absolutely fits into the idea of Saint George as a dragon slayer apart from the fact there's no dragon so the positioning of the figure on the ground of the soldier that he's fighting you can almost map it onto the classic form of Saint George trampling the dragon so either it's under the hooves of his horse or he is personally standing on it depending often on the shape of the artwork that we're talking about and

there are various other images that you can compare that with there's a particularly nice Georgian icon silver from the 11th century which has Saint George on his horse battling a figure who is clearly identifiable as being from outside of Christianity from the Islamic tradition arguably there's a little crescent on the figure's shield but again lying on the ground under the horse's hooves and notably being stabbed in the mouth or the throat by St George's lance. That is something which becomes a very, very common image of George attacking the dragon. It is arguably about overcoming heresy or untruth, something like that. The voice is what's being attacked.

So I think that it kind of melds and merges into the idea of the dragon because as we said before christianity needs a dragon slayer in order to kind of fit with what people's expectations are of a proper religion so a really nice piece of symbolism for good triumphing over evil which which is predictable because you know the outcome. You know that St. George is always going to subdue the dragon. You know that the dragon is going to end up dead. The threat is contained. One of the aspects that I am particularly intrigued by in the later medieval period is St. George being associated with the city.

So there's a lovely example at Coventry. We have a wooden sculpture from the 15th century which sat in a chapel of St George that was one of the gate chapels. So it was a walled city. St George is overcoming the dragon, who's understood to be a figure of wilderness and chaos, but also the dragon is gendered female. It has genitals. And there is a bit of a trend for having the dragon gendered female in visual imagery in the 15th and early 16th centuries. We've got one written life of St George that I'm aware of where the dragon is gendered female, but there's no particular reason for it she's not a mother there's nothing about her genitalia in the text

but it's Alexander Barclay's life of St George which is a very important translation of a Latin original and it is from about 1515 and it really starts to set the scene for later post-Reformation understanding. So if we think of, for instance, Spencer's Fairy Queen, the Red Cross Knight, in that that seems to be drawing ideas from Alexander Barclay, and we do get a female dragon, you'll be pleased to know. So the female dragon isn't peculiarly English, far from it, but it's something that I think is encountered sufficiently frequently in English medieval depictions that we can say that it was recognised. It's possible it was just an option. So yes, I'm an artist, I will fulfil your commission for an image of St George and the dragon. Would you like the dragon to have wings?

Do you want it to have legs? How many legs would you like it to have? How many heads? Secondary head in the tail. Do you want it to have female genitalia? It could just be back to our pick and mix idea, as opposed to having some deep and profound significance. But I think that on occasion it probably did.

So there's a lovely wall painting of George and the dragon in Norwich, St Gregory's Pottergate, where the dragon has baby dragons, dragonlets, as well as having the genitalia. I think the idea of St George overcoming the dragon where there are baby dragons doesn't really take off. I know of just a handful of examples, because the problem is, if he's meant to be defeating evil once and for all, well, she might have already had a previous litter and they could be out in the world doing dreadful things. Whereas if you focus simply on the dragon as being a symbol of terrible bestial female sexuality that must be contained, that must be subdued, that must be safely put into marriage, for instance, and very much a reformer's idea, then it works because that

can be a once and for all overcoming that St George has managed. So it's not just male versus female, it's about chastity and it's about kind of keeping women's sexuality safely contained. That is what that symbolism seems to be about. It's so interesting then, so talking about depictions of St George in medieval England, is it fair to say that perhaps the more central elements of the martyrdom story aren't really depicted, nor perhaps George as a farmer it's more focusing on this dragon and these whether it's a crusader or perhaps more chivalric ideas and the female dragon it's different aspects that are depicted in medieval England on these images yes the dragon is very popular but it is by no means always present again of course we're dealing with partial survival so it's really hard to be

definitive about this but my sense is that the person on the 15th century equivalent of the clapham omnibus would have had an idea of saint george as a dragon slayer and also of saint george as a martyr and they may have had the idea of saint george as a farmer and associated with the fertility of the land and animals and bringing the rain and all those sorts of ideas. It's harder to be sure about that but we certainly have got enough examples of St George being depicted as a martyr and certainly in the written lives of St George he is consistently shown as a martyr as well as a dragon slayer, even though the precise ordering and the different tortures that are associated with him will vary.

It's interesting, there isn't a specific torture that St George always has. So if you think about St Catherine, for example, we immediately think of the wheel. The firework is named St Catherine's wheel. And that is a clue to how strongly that identification takes place. Another example might be St. Andrew. He isn't exclusively depicted with being crucified on a salt iron on an X-shaped cross, but it becomes very, very dominant as a torture that's associated with him. But George, you can pretty much have anything you want. I undertook an exercise of trying to map consistency, only to discover there wasn't any. He picks up tortures that are associated with other saints. Another example would be John the Evangelist. He's not

perhaps recognised very frequently these days as a martyr because he wasn't killed, he wasn't executed. But he was boiled in a cauldron of oil. And there was also an attempt made to poison him. And St. George similarly has both of those tortures. He's subjected to them. So which torments would you like your depiction of St. George to take on board? And yes, we can do those for you. So he's very malleable figure very malleable and you know how he's depicted is perhaps the decision of maybe not the patron but the person who's organizing the construction of whatever building isn't it I mean well let's move on

we've talked about medieval so let's go to the late 15th 16th centuries because the Tudors they seem to go mad for Saint George this seems to be a zenith in St George's time in England. Absolutely. If we just go back very slightly into the Wars of the Roses, both sides, House of Lancaster and the House of York, both invoke St George. They almost seem to think that having St George on your side was a sign that you really were the correct dynasty to be occupying the throne of England. So the Tudors almost have to have St George as a way of really demonstrating that their, in my view, shaky claim to the throne was a solid one. So he is brought in to reinforce a pre-existing idea. I'm sometimes asked about why St George is the patron saint of England. And my view is that our friend on the 15th century equivalent of the Clapham Omnibus

would not recognise St George as a patron of the country. He was a patron of the monarchy. He's a patron of the social elite. And come the Reformation, he's too good to lose, essentially. So strictly, the only saints that should be recognised in the Protestant tradition are the apostles and other figures who are mentioned in the Bible. St George absolutely fails on that score, but nevertheless, he persists. And I think it's because he was a politically incredibly useful figure. And consequently, the Tudors are just adding to

the general sense that he's a good person to have, he supports England. His link to the Virgin Mary seems to be part of that as well, because there is an English medieval belief that England is the Virgin's dower. I'm not sure anybody anywhere else believed that England had this special link to the Virgin Mary, but certainly medieval English elites seem to think that. And if you look at an artwork like the Wilton Diptych, which shows Richard II before the Virgin and Charles and the angels. And there's a wonderful little image of an island set in a silver sea, this sceptred isle, it's very Shakespearean, where of course it's well in advance of Shakespeare's writing. And we also have a reference to Richard and his wife Anna Bohemia with the global pattern of England, and it seems to link into this image as

well so the Virgin Mary is understood as having a special link to England or a special responsibility for England and consequently St George is her champion therefore is the champion of England and as soon as we get through the reformation we start to have a kind of almost scrabbling about to justify St George as the patron saint of England. So we need to think of a wonderful book called The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom. And St George is one of those champions. And it really starts to cement the idea that George is a patron of England and that George is in the tradition of King Arthur and takes on various different aspects of established English folkloric ideas but also that he's English so we start for the first time to see an understanding of St George being born in England.

Is this the work of Richard Johnson? It certainly is. Yes. Hugely popular work. Very, very influential. He has the patron saints of what we could call the home nations. So we have Patrick and Andrew and David as well. Patrick and Andrew and David as well. But George is the one that he's most interested in. Very complex story with lots of embroidery, shall we say. Seems to have a very long-standing influence afterwards. One of the traditions of St George that I really like is the idea that he was born in Coventry and he goes off to Egypt rather than Libya and kills the dragon and he marries the princess and brings her back to

Coventry and they have three children together one of whom is Guy of Warwick who is another folkloric monster slayer and the princess falls into a thorn bush and dies very sadly but St George then goes on to kill another dragon and it's actually kind of straight out of Beowulf the idea of the hero and the dragon killing each other it's a really really nice idea because it is something that gives us a sense of a deliberate decision we're landed with this patron saint what are we going to do with him? Let's make him ours. Let's bring him into a model of what we see as being acceptable and appropriate for an English knight, I suppose, as a way to live. And being married is very much part of that.

However, 15th century, no, he never, ever marries the princess. He is a figure of chastity. He's offered her hand in marriage he always says no and it's because he has devoted himself to the virgin mary so there is quite a change in that period and i think the reformation has this very very strong role so arguably he shouldn't have survived his cult shouldn't have survived in protestant countries and particularly england for our purposes and yet it does so therefore he needs to be reinvented. And by the time we get to the Pre-Raphaelites, who absolutely love St. George, they like to think that they are reflecting a medieval understanding of St. George, but they're doing nothing of the sort.

The wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra is an idea that comes up in their work, for instance. So they absolutely kind of buy into the post-Reformation understanding of St George. So if they're buying into this post-Reformation understanding of St George, I mean, how long before, maybe should we say the Catholic Church folds and they allow England to officially have St George as their patron saint. So when does the actual patron saint of England, St George Association, come about? We don't really know. We're back to the obscure. It's hard to say. There are dates that are bandied about with, to my mind, too much sense of certainty. It all depends what you mean. So even to get into the idea of, well, when do patron saints become a meaningful concept? That's actually quite difficult to

pin down. I'm sometimes told, oh, St George has displaced an earlier saint, St Alban, St Edmund, St Edward the Confessor, to which my response is, and your evidence is what that this individual was ever understood. So to use St. Edmund as an example, patron saint of East Anglia, absolutely, I will allow that. Patron saint of England sitting here in Lancashire, I doubt anybody had heard of him. And so the idea that St. George has kind of done away with a previous patron saint I think is very difficult to actually maintain but what we can do is to see ideas of Saint George being associated with the monarchy and I wonder if there is a bit of a sense of letat semua so the figure of the king is the same thing as the country and therefore the king's patron is somehow by extension the patron of the

country even though most people wouldn't have known that and wouldn't have recognized St George as being important in their lives in any way one of the key elements I think we've got is Windsor Windsor Castle the chapel of St George at Winds, the foundation of the Order of Zagata. But this is all about the monarchy. Undoubtedly, people went on pilgrimage. There was a very nice relic of St. George at Windsor. Edward III had several relics of St. George, actually. But I don't think that people would go on pilgrimage to St. George as kind of the number one place to go to. Thomas Beckett, far more important, I think.

Our Lady at Walsingham. There's all sorts of places that you could go to in preference to going and invoking a saint who, for most people, didn't have a great deal to do with their ordinary lives. So let's move on. We're going to continue our time down to the present day. It gets to the 19th century and the Victorians. It seems St George, he also has a really important role, or shall we say significant role to play during this imperial period. I mean, how does St George become associated with imperialism

and the British Empire at this time? I think it's correct to identify him as a figure of empire and to some extent I'd say this is part of the reinvention of St George as an English figure. So for instance he is very much in the tradition of King Arthur. There are works in the 19th century in particular that claim that he was born in Tintagel. He owned the sword Excalibur. He's often associated, of course, with armies, with soldiers. It's an extension really of the idea of the soldier saint, which is coming from quite an early period in St George's cult, certainly by the time of the Crusades,

is well established as one of a group of soldier saints and perhaps arguably becomes preeminent amongst them. So there is potentially an aspect of conquering armies, be they literal armies or part of the forces of empire, who take St George with them and impose him into the places that they come to. And you can see the evidence of this, for instance, in Cape Town, the Cathedral of St George, for instance. In Australia, there's a lot of St George. There are locations called St George, just as there are in Bristol. There's part of the city there. But similarly,

you could go to Italy and find a hundred different settlements that invoke St George directly in their name. So it's difficult to know whether we are looking at something which is a conscious decision or if we're seeing causality that perhaps isn't really there. But for me, it's when we start to get war memorials created that invoke St George. This is a tipping point, really, where he's, the idea of him in relation to empire. So for example, from the Boer War, we've got war memorials. Clifton College in Bristol is somewhere that comes to mind, which invokes St George. He then becomes very strongly associated. So First World War memorials, Second World memorials often have St George on them. And so he's understood as a symbol of England. He's understood as a symbol of Britain by extension and certainly of military action. However, it isn't peculiar to England. So one of the most moving World War

memorials that I've seen is in the town of Groningen in the Netherlands, which is St. George having killed the dragon and essentially looks completely defeated himself. So it is about the futility of war. Really interesting piece of work. Nothing at all to do with England or the British Empire. So I think we need to be careful that we're not being selective with the areas that we're focusing on to the exclusion of other interpretations, which we just don't happen to have found yet. I came across that particular war memorial completely by accident. The church that I wanted to go into was locked and so I walked round the back and there was this absolutely stunning St George war memorial. So my study and

my research of St George has often had these elements of coincidence and happenstance in them and I put that out as a kind of lesson that you need to be careful not to think that what you're seeing is all there is, that there is this broader idea. That said, I do feel that some of the unease that is very palpable about St. George in England arises directly from his association with empire and with the memorialisation of war. And to the extent that there are people who assume that everything that they come across about St George that counters that view must be wrong. So there's an absolutely beautiful altarpiece of St George, which was created for the new millennium. altarpiece of St George which was created for the new millennium it's in Manchester Cathedral and it shows a black St George who is interacting positively with the dragon. The dragon is shackled

and St George is freeing it. It's about freeing of potential of Manchester as a city. It's by the artist Mark Cazalet and I've had some very interesting discussions with Mark about this piece of work and in our discussions he told me that somebody had been and stabbed St George in the leg and he had to be involved in making decisions about how the altarpiece would be repaired. Now I don't know exactly why that altarpiece was attacked but I think the fact that St George is black in that image is probably not unrelated. I'm also aware that there was an organised, shall we say, hostility towards that altarpiece when it was being installed. And it's because it was challenging. In fact, of course, we know there is a very strong tradition of St George being black. It is entirely appropriate and possible to have a black St George.

Of course, it's fine. And yet somebody felt so strongly about that depiction that they wanted to take physical revenge upon it. Similarly, from the other way round, I've had occasionally people contacting me saying, how dare I try to present a version of St George to their children when St George is so clearly xenophobic and racist and generally awful? To which my response is, have you actually read any of the material? Would you like to perhaps read this piece? This may give you a different view. And then the last time this happened, the person was kind enough to come back and say, oh my goodness, I can now see what you're doing. Thank you ever so much.

So they'd seen St. George being used in their school and led to the conclusion that this was an absolutely terrible, exclusionary thing to do. And yet when you dig under the surface and you realise that St George is not only recognised in different world religions, as we've discussed, different countries, but also, for instance, hugely important figure for the Roma community, particularly in continental Europe. So he is very much associated with springtime and fertility and the turn of the year. And those positive ideas nothing at all to do with empire nothing at all to do with the idea of English civilisation being foisted onto people from other countries I think that seeing him in the round we get a sense that these ideas which provoke unease are actually a really small element from this huge panoply and when I'm asked should St George be

replaced as the patron or should we have a quote, better patron? I always say absolutely not. We are incredibly lucky in England that we've got this fantastic patron saint who's recognised in so many places with so many really, really positive ideas. Really, we're part of a family of nations. And he is cross-cultural. He's incredibly inclusive to the extent that there's even a coptic tradition that he was recognized as the bridegroom of christ so he could be a figure of same-sex marriage you can't get much more inclusive than that so i think that really we've done very well and i'm delighted when i see saint St George being celebrated positively with an understanding of the many, many facets and the ways in which he can bring people together. to challenge these canards, you know, that have abounded, you know, sometimes is associated with extremist groups and so on. But to challenge that and successfully challenge that to show how this saint can be such a force for good,

is meant for positivity, for inclusivity and integrity in England and in the wider world in the years, decades, maybe centuries ahead. Absolutely right. Yes, it's a shame that we still need to be making the case for St. George. But nevertheless, I can point to Edward Gibbon, decline and fall of the Roman Empire. He misidentifies St. George with a genuine historical figure called George of Cappadocia, who was a very problematic figure. He was a heretic. He also sold pork of rather dubious origin to the Roman army, but nevertheless ended up as a bishop. This is an entirely different person. But the canard that George of Cappadocia is St. George and St. George is therefore dreadful has persisted and is trotted out with wearying regularity but thankfully more and more people

are now getting interested in the what I would say is the true version of Saint George and the multiplicity of the understandings about him and are able to help him to be seen as this positive and inclusive figure with so very much to offer not only for our cosmopolitan communities now but as we go into the future that there's so many communities for whom St George is a really important totemic figure and as I say I think we're hugely lucky to be part of that group. I think you're absolutely right. And just keeping on England a bit longer, just imagine the amount of people, I'm sure lots of people listening would have gone through a village in England or elsewhere and you would have seen the local pub. And what is the name of the pub? It's the George and the picture of the pub over the doorway. And it's George as a knight or whatever with the dragon. The image of him is absolutely everywhere. And it's embracing that, isn't it, for the positives in the years ahead? Absolutely. There's no getting away from him, really. If you just

think about coinage, sovereigns, he's there. He's been frequently depicted on coins, slightly different versions of him. He also has been used by contemporary artists in many different ways. One of my favourite artists to use St George is an art medal maker called Nicola Moss. And she has a wonderful piece that she created in the 1980s, which on one side has a naked St George on a horse with no bridle or saddle interacting with the dragon. And it's all about freedom and positivity and balance and then on

the reverse we have the princess rescuing herself so there's a wonderful idea of the ways in which the triangle of Saint George and the dragon and the princess can be reinterpreted. And essentially, in this case, it's being used as a figure of feminism. There's more to come. One of the parts of my research that gives me the most pleasure is working with contemporary playwrights, with artists, because every time I think they thought of all the ways you could reinterpret St George, they come up with something completely fresh. It's absolutely wonderful. And this St George's Day, I'm going to be in Glastonbury,

taking part in an event called Reclaim St George, which involves poets and the playwrights, and there'll be a wonderful performance, which is again, full of reinterpretations. Well, Sam, this has been an absolutely amazing chat. I've no doubt that many people listening will want to know more about your work. So you have written a couple of books about St George, haven't you? I certainly have, yes. First one is called St George Hero, Martyr and Myth, and that is available in paperback still, I think, published in 2005.

And then more recently, I published a book called St. George's Saint for All, which is particularly about the international cult. This is where I undertook some really interesting research, going to different countries and experiencing different aspects of his cult. And that came out in 2015. Brilliant. Well, Sam, it just goes for me to say this has been absolutely awesome. And thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. It's been my absolute pleasure. And I look forward to seeing yet more celebrations of St. George in the years to come. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Sam Riches talking all about St. George, this international saint who is revered, who is known across the world. I hope you really

enjoyed that and it was a really enlightening chat, particularly for myself. Now, if you want more Ancients content in the meantime, you know what to do. You can subscribe to our weekly newsletter via a link in the description below. Every week I write a little bit of content, a little blurb for that newsletter explaining what's been happening in Team Ancients world that week, whether it's heading up to Preston to interview a contributor such as Sam Richards for this St George interview, or TV work that we're currently working on that we're getting close to releasing on History Hits' very own TV channel, History Hits TV.

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