Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/523

 GEORCtE

455

GEORGE

For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore

And dead (as living) ever him adored. We are told also that the hero thought continually of wreaking vengeance: —

Upon his foe, a dragon horrible and stern.

Ecclesiastically speaking, St. George's day, 23 April, was ordered to be kept as a lesser holiday as early as 1222, in the national synod of Oxford. In 1415, the Constitution of Archbi.shopt'hichele rai.sed St. George's day to the rank of one of the greatest feasts and or- dered it to be observed like Christmas day. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries St. George's day remained a holiday of obligation for English Catholics. Since 1778, however, it has been kept, like many of these older holidays, as a simple feast of devotion, though it ranks liturgically as a double of the first class with an octave.

Saint George and the Dragon. — The best- known form of the legend of St. George and the Dragon is that made popular by the "Legenda Aurea", and translated into English by Caxton. According to this, a terrible dragon had ravaged all the country

already in the dragon's clutches, while an abbot

stands by and blesses the rescuer.

Dei.eiiaye, Lc3 Ugendes mrei), !)[). 45-76; Dele-

ii. I .iii.l.in, 1907). pp.

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GoRRES, HUtt:i- SI. titnrfj ill ZaLsrhrijl /, /

pp. 454 sqq. ; Act S^., ^3 Apr.; Dillma\ I , schichten in the Sitzungsberichte oi the l^il :i ^ AMKL.INEAU, Les Actcs des Martyrs dc t'l^.j^. 1890); GUTSCHMID, Die Sage vom H. Geurg in tin- Saxon Academy, XIII (Leipzig, 1861); Zahnl- Georgii in the Berichte of the Saxon Academy, XXVII (Leipzig, 1875); Clermont-Ganneau, Horus et St. Georges in the Revue Archiohgigue, new series, XXXII, pp. 196-204 and 372-99; ZwlERZlNA, Bemerkungen zur Georgias-Legende in Prager deutsche Sludien (Prague, 1908), VITI, 1-10; Detlefsen in 6'i72- vngsberichte K. K. Acad. (Vienna, 1858), XXVIII, 386-95; Vetter, Der heilige Georg des Reinbot von ttume (Halle, 1896); Wallis Budge, The Martyrdom and Miracles of St. George, the Coptic texts and translation (London, 1SS8); Thurston in The Month (April, 1S92); Frieprich, Der grschirhtlirhe hritige Georg in thp Vienna .^it:iinr!.-<hm--hlr. IS^O. II. Ifii) 'jn:',: Vesfi nr-

Carpaccio, Hospital of San ti

round a city of Libya, called Selena, making its lair in a marshy swamp. Its breath caused pestilence whenever it approached the town, so the people gave the monster two sheep every day to satisfy its hunger, but, when the sheep failed, a human victim was neces- sary and lots were drawn to determine the victim. On one occasion the lot fell to the king's little daughter. The king offered all his wealth to purchase a substi- tute, but the people had pledgecl themselves that no substitutes should be allowed, and so the maiden, dressed as a bride, was led to the marsh. There St. George chanced to ride by, and asked the maiden what she did, but she bade him leave her lest he also might perish. The good knight stayed, however, and, when the dragon appeared, St. George, making the sign of the cross, bravely attacked it and transfixed it with his lance. Then asking the maiden for her girdle (an incident in the story which may possibly have some- thing to do with St. George's selection as patron of the Order of the Garter), he bound it round the neck of the monster, and thereupon the princess was able to lead it like a lamb. They then returned to the city, where St. George bade the people have no fear but only be baptized, after which he cut off the dragon's head and the townsfolk were all converted. The king would have given George half his kingdom, but the saint re- plied that he must ride on, bidding the king mean- while take good care of God's churches, honour the clergy, and have pity on the poor. The earliest refer- ence to any such episode in art is probably to be found in an old Roman tombstone at Conisborough in York- shire, considered to belong to the first half of the twelfth century. Here the princess is depicted as

BKij in the Shornik of the .St. Petersburg Academy (1881), XXI, 172-89; Arndt in the Berichte of the Academy of Saxony, XXVI, pp. 49-70 Leipzig, 18741; on St. (iporie in Art see especially: Scharf, On a Votive Ptnnhr.^i nf St. fnuin/tr and the Dragon in Archaologia, XLIX, pp l-'l.'. :;ilO (l.'in.lnn. INS.',);

Gordon, St. George Cluimpion of tju i.l, i,,i,,m il k.ii, 19071;

BuLLEY, St. George for Merrie England iLumlun. lUOS); on the Flag and Arms of St. George: — Cumberland, History of the Union Jack (London, 1901); Green, The Union Jack (London., 1903).

Herbert Thurston.

George, Saint, Diocese op. See Saint George.

George, Saint, Orders of. See Saint George, Ordeh.s of.

George Hamartolus, a monk at Constantinople under Michael III (842-867) and the author of a chronicle of some importance. Hamartolus is not his name but the epithet he gives to himself in the title of his work: "A compendious chronicle from various chroniclers and interpreters, gathered together and arranged by George, a sinner [uiri Yeuip-flov aiMproKov]". It is a common form among Byzantine monks. Krumbacher (Byz. Litt., 358) protests against the use of this epithet as a name and proposes (and uses) the form Georgios Monaclios. Nothing is known about him except from the internal evidences of his work, which establishes his period (in the preface he speaks of Michael III as the reigning emperor) and his calling (he refers to himself several times as a monk). The chronicle consists of four books. The first treats of profane history from Adam to Alexander the Great; the second, of the history of the Old Testament; the third, of Roman history from Julius Caesar to Constan- tine; and the fourth down to the author's own time.