This book is about St. George in medieval England, in particular about the process by which he became the national patron in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. St. George was not of English origin himself – if he ever even existed, he would most likely have been one of the many Christians martyred for their faith in the Eastern Roman Empire sometime in the third or early fourth centuries. Thereafter, for various reasons, he became a patron of agriculture, of the Byzantine army, of crusading against non-Christians, and of the medieval ideal of chivalry (the main reason why he came to be portrayed in legend and image as a dragon-slayer). Some or all of these qualities were appealing to any number of people across the Christian world, who thereby adopted him as their patron – the Genoese, Moscovites, and Ethiopians being only a few. Certainly the idea of crusading, or at least of “just war,” was also appealing to the kings of England, starting with Edward I (1272–1307), who deployed St. George to justify their own wars with Wales, Scotland, and France. This usage was shortly taken by many in the English political community to mean that St. George was the patron, not only of the king, but also of the realm, in which they had a stake. Some reasons for this transference will be suggested below; suffice it to say that while it did not completely displace other meanings of his cult in late medieval England, it was clearly the most important, and the major reason why the saint survived the Reformation as a national symbol.

If anything served to diminish this status, therefore, it was not religious but political. Parliamentary union with Scotland in 1707 largely succeeded in subsuming “England” into the new political idea of “Britain,” thereby producing a new panoply of symbols like the Royal Union Banner or the classical allegorical figure of Britannia. St. George was never entirely forgotten as a patriotic symbol, but his importance was diminished – until recently. With devolution – the creation of separate assemblies for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, granted the right to pass certain types of legislation without recourse to Westminster – the United Kingdom has become less united.