The book of British ballads . h posts he resigned when that emperor persecuted the christians, and for whichhe was beheaded. His apparition appeared to encourage the christian army underGodfrey of Bouilloigne and Richard I., in their expedition against the Saracens;and hence he was chosen as their patron saint, from the interest thus taken in thecrusades. He adds, St. George is usually painted on horseback, and tilting at adragon under his feet; but this is no more than an emblematical figure, purporting,that, by faith and christian fortitude, he conquered the devil, called the dragon in theAp
The book of British ballads . h posts he resigned when that emperor persecuted the christians, and for whichhe was beheaded. His apparition appeared to encourage the christian army underGodfrey of Bouilloigne and Richard I., in their expedition against the Saracens;and hence he was chosen as their patron saint, from the interest thus taken in thecrusades. He adds, St. George is usually painted on horseback, and tilting at adragon under his feet; but this is no more than an emblematical figure, purporting,that, by faith and christian fortitude, he conquered the devil, called the dragon in theApocalypse. Others imagine that St. Michael destroying the dragon is the originof this representation of St. George. The story of a saint, or deity, spearing a dragon, was known in the east from theearliest periods: among the Mahometans, a person called Gergis, or George, wasrevered as a prophet, and was so represented. Similar emblems have been dis-covered among other nations of the east. Whether these nations took it from the. Greeks, or the latter from them, cannot be ascertained; for, of the real existenceof such a person as St. George, no positive proofs have ever been advanced. Chanceler, the first Englishman who discovered Russia, speaking of a dispatchsent from Ivan Vassilievitch to Queen Mary, says that it had appended to it a seal much like the broad seal of England, having on one side the image of a man onhorseback, in complete armour, fighting with a dragon; and this figure appears tohave been in common use by the Russian princes on their coins, &c, long beforethe institution of the Garter, in England, which took place on St. Georges Day,April 23, 1350. The representation of St. George, here copied, is from an illumination in a thick folio volume of Romanus, most splendidlyornamented, which was presented to KingHenry VI. by Talbot, the great Earl of Shrews-bury, and which is now among the royal manu-scripts in the British Museum. It shews usSt. George, in complete arm
Size: 1566px × 1595px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidg, bookpublisherlondonjhow
