page_title: Saint George
section_title: Historicity
hierarchical_section_title: Saint George / Legend / Historicity
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Illustration aus der Schedel'schen Weltchronik, Blatt 124v English: Illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle
context_page_description: Saint George, also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is accepted as a saint in Christianity and Islam. According to traditional rumors, he was a soldier in the Roman army. His parents were Christians of Greek origin. His father, Gerontius, was a Cappadocian serving in the Roman army. His mother Polikronya was a Christian from the city of Lod in Palestine. Saint George was a soldier of Cappadocian Greek origins, member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades.
  In hagiography, as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and one of the most prominent military saints, he is immortalised in the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. His memorial, Saint George's Day, is traditionally celebrated on 23 April.
  England, Ethiopia, Georgia, and the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia and Aragon in Spain, and several other nation states, cities, universities, professions and organisations all claim George as their patron.
context_section_description: There is little information on the early life of George. Herbert Thurston in The Catholic Encyclopedia states that based upon an ancient cultus, narratives of the early pilgrims, and the early dedications of churches to George, going back to the fourth century, "there seems, therefore, no ground for doubting the historical existence of St. George", although no faith can be placed in either the details of his history or his alleged exploits.
  Although the Diocletianic Persecution of 303, associated with military saints because the persecution was aimed at Christians among the professional soldiers of the Roman army, is of undisputed historicity. According to Donald Attwater, "No historical particulars of his life have survived, ...The widespread veneration for St George as a soldier saint from early times had its centre in Palestine at Diospolis, now Lydda. St George was apparently martyred there, at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century; that is all that can be reasonably surmised about him."
  Edward Gibbon argued that George, or at least the legend from which the above is distilled, is based on George of Cappadocia, a notorious 4th-century Arian bishop who was Athanasius of Alexandria's most bitter rival, and that it was he who in time became George of England. 
  This identification is seen as highly improbable. Bishop George was slain by Gentile Greeks for exacting onerous taxes, especially inheritance taxes. J. B. Bury, who edited the 1906 edition of Gibbon's The Decline and Fall, wrote "this theory of Gibbon's has nothing to be said for it." He adds that: "the connection of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not relegate him to the region of the myth".
  Saint George in all likelihood was martyred before the year 290.
caption: George depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493
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