Saint George and the Dragon

St. George is famous for dragon-slaying.

Saint George, the patron saint of England, was a Christian martyr who, according to tradition, lived about 275 - 303 A.D. His father was from Cappadocia, and was a soldier. St. George followed in his father's footsteps and joined the army. He quickly rose through the ranks and became a tribune and later a count. He became a member of Roman Emperor Diocletian's personal guard.

In 303, Emperor Diocletian ordered the systematic persecution of Christians across the Roman Empire. Saint George was ordered to take part in the persecution, but instead confessed to being a Christian himself and criticized the imperial decision. Enraged, Diocletian ordered the torture and beheading of Saint George. He was killed in Nicomedia on April 23, 303 A.D.

Christians soon honored St. George as a martyr. A number of churches have been built in his honor in Lydda, the home of his mother. His veneration spread throughout Palestine and the Roman Empire. Devotion to Saint George became popular in Europe in the 10th century. In the 15th century, his feast day was as popular and important as Christmas.

Very little about George's life can be confirmed by historians. Early on, the Church itself was cautious: a document known as the Gelasian Decree, traditionally linked to Pope Gelasius I around 494, lists George among saints whose deeds are known only to God. Most of what is told about him comes from later legends written to honor him.

The Golden Legend

The story of Saint George and the Dragon is a popular one in Europe. Its best-known version comes from the Golden Legend, a collection of saints' lives written by the Italian archbishop Jacobus de Voragine around 1260. The legend takes place in a town called Silene, in Libya. The legend states that this town had a large pond where a plague-bearing dragon dwelt. To appease the dragon, the villagers would feed it sheep and maidens. The maidens of the village would draw lots to see who would be sacrificed to the dragon.

One day, the lot fell upon the princess of Silene. The king, distraught with grief, told the people they could have all his gold and silver and half of his kingdom if his daughter were spared. The people, fearing the wrath of the dragon, refused. So, the princess was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.

Saint George, hearing of this predicament, rode on horseback to the lake. The princess, trembling, sought to send him away, but George vowed to remain and fortified himself with the Sign of the Cross.

The dragon reared out of the lake as George and the princess were talking. Saint George charged at it on horseback and pierced it with his lance. Then he called to the princess to throw him her girdle, and put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a dog on a leash. They led the dragon back into town, where it terrified the people at its approach. But St. George called out to them, saying that if they converted to Christianity and were baptized, he would slay the dragon before them.

The king and the villagers agreed, 15,000 men plus women and children, and were converted and baptized. George then drew his sword and slew the dragon. On the site where the dragon died, the king built a church, which bore a spring whose waters cured all diseases.

Where the Dragon Story Came From

The earliest accounts of George's martyrdom say nothing about a dragon. The dragon-slaying episode appears much later. Some of its earliest known versions come from the Christian East, including Georgia, around the 11th century, and Eastern icons began to show George on horseback spearing a dragon at about the same time. Another warrior saint, Theodore, was linked to dragon-slaying even earlier, and the two traditions may have influenced each other.

The story probably reached Western Europe with returning crusaders, who carried George's cult home from the eastern Mediterranean. By the time Jacobus de Voragine wrote it down, it was already well known. His version spread across Europe in hundreds of manuscripts and, later, in early printed books, including an English translation printed by William Caxton in 1483.

The legend draws on much older patterns. A hero rescuing a princess offered to a monster recalls the Greek story of Perseus and Andromeda, and a dragon that demands human sacrifices is found in many folk tales. The Christian twist is that the dragon also stands for paganism or the devil, as in the Book of Revelation, so defeating it means converting the town. See dragons in the Bible for that background.

Patron Saint of England

George was popular with English soldiers long before he became the country's patron. His feast day, April 23, was ordered to be kept in England in 1222. King Edward III placed his new chivalric order, the Order of the Garter, under George's patronage around 1348, and St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle became its spiritual home. The Order is still England's highest order of knighthood, and its badge shows George slaying the dragon.

George's status rose further after Henry V's victory at Agincourt in 1415, when his feast was made one of the most important in the English church year. Shakespeare gave Henry the famous battle cry "God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"

The red cross on a white field, known as St George's Cross, was used by English soldiers from the late Middle Ages. It became the flag of England and today forms part of the Union Flag of the United Kingdom.

George Around the World

England is far from the only place that claims George. He is the patron saint of Georgia, which displays five red crosses on its flag, and of Catalonia, Aragon, and Portugal. Moscow's coat of arms shows him on horseback spearing a dragon. In Catalonia, April 23 is Sant Jordi, a day when people traditionally give each other roses and books. In Lebanon, tradition places the dragon fight near Beirut, at a bay that still bears his name. He is also widely honored in Ethiopia, Greece, Russia, and across the Orthodox world, and some Muslim traditions in the Middle East link him with the mysterious figure al-Khidr.

George and the Dragon in Art

Saint George and the dragon became one of the most painted scenes in European art. Raphael painted it at least twice in the early 1500s; one version hangs in the Louvre in Paris and another in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Paolo Uccello's painting in the National Gallery in London shows the princess calmly holding the wounded dragon on a leash, just as in the Golden Legend. Donatello carved a famous marble statue of George for a church in Florence, and Vittore Carpaccio painted a series of George scenes in Venice. In Stockholm, a huge carved wooden statue group by Bernt Notke shows the knight, the princess, and a spiky dragon.

Literature took up the story too. Richard Johnson's The Seven Champions of Christendom (1596) gave George his sword, Ascalon. Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene retold the tale as the adventures of the Redcrosse Knight, who kills a dragon to free a princess's parents. English folk plays, called mummers' plays, featured George fighting a dragon or a Turkish knight for centuries.

George's dragon is one of many in European legend. For more knights and their monsters, see the history of dragons, the legend of Krakus and the Wawel dragon, and our full collection of dragon legends.

Sources and Further Reading

• Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton University Press, 2012).
• Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton, 2nd ed. (Longman, 2001).
• The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha, New Revised Standard Version, 5th ed., ed. Michael D. Coogan (Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Daniel Ogden, Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and Early Christian Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford University Press, 2013).
• Samantha Riches, St George: Hero, Martyr and Myth (Sutton, 2000).
• Jonathan Good, The Cult of St George in Medieval England (Boydell Press, 2009).