St George And The Dragons: The Making Of English Identity,Used

Product Description St George and the Dragons is a comprehensive survey of the tradition and symbolism of St George in English culture, The book reviews the facts about St George and his influence in England. The book summarizes what is known, according to the latest research, about: the historical St George; the growth and influence of legends about him in England, especially George and the Dragon; and the place of St George in English history, culture and institutions, particularly the banner of St George. There are some 150 illustrations. St George and the Dragons reflects on the significance of the figure of St George for today. Finally there are links to St George societies, research resources and information for visitors to England. St George and the Dragons explores whether and in what sense the figure of St George, the patron saint of England, can throw light upon, even perhaps crystallize, the question of what it means to be English today. From the Author During travels made during my teaching career I have been a member of the Royal Society of St George, a charitable, cultural and social organization (Patron: HM The Queen) which in many countries provides a meeting point for British expatriates. While in Vancouver I became intrigued by St George himself as an elusive, possibly mythical, sometimes controversial figure, and decided to try to get the bottom of why his tradition took hold in England and took the form it did there.Thus followed ten years of research which nearly came to an end when the website where I was reporting my findings unaccountably disappeared in 2007. Then two years later a kindly internet marketing expert, Jim R. Graham, showed me how to recover the pages from The Wayback Machine. At that point I resolved to write up my research in the more permanent form of a book and to give a more coherent account of the part the figure of St George had played in England over the centuries and of what the saint might stand for today.The results appeared inSt George in English History on Kindle last November and in March 2012 the printed versionbecame available on amazon under the title St George and the Dragons. The book includes more research findings on the medieval period, a Conclusion, an index and some 150 colourillustrations.The figure of St George best known in Englandtoday was actually invented by theTudors but isstill relevant. The traditional figure of a Greek martyr at Constantinople has been transformed by later researchinto that of the son of a sheikh put to death in Palestine for protesting against the worship of Hercules and Apollo, the patron gods of the Roman army. Controversially, I suggest that the name georgios (earthtiller) suggests that the saint was close to the people and, as hinted at by an ancient inscription in Syria, his martyrdom may have resulted from a popular uprising against tyranny and oppression. It is also possible that St George mayhave come from Nubia and been black. While the tradition of St George had a brief brilliant flowering in the 15th century, our ideas about him stem from the Tudors. St George was made England's patron saint by Henry VIII, whose scholars invented a link with Richard I. Meanwhile Edward III's Order of the Garter was scarcely known outside royal circles and St George was only one of its patrons. As champions of English independence against France and Spain, the Tudors promoted St George as a symbol of a true preCatholic Christianity brought to England in the 1st century. Thus he became a Protestant, patriotic, military symbol displacing all other nonBiblical saints. The adoption of the cross of St George by English soldiers was also much later than widely believed. Although William the Conqueror knew about St George, even by 1188 English crusaders were not wearing the redandwhite of St George's cross but white crosses on blue. It was the French who wore red. This did not represent St George but their country