Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Very slight tan to page edges. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> 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 agains non-Christians and of the medieval ideal of chivalry (the main reasor 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 mear 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. (LL)