![]() Iconographic representations of St Theodore as dragon-slayer are dated to as early as the 7th century, certainly by the early 10th century (the oldest certain depiction of Theodore killing a dragon is at Aghtamar, dated c. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil becomes current in the early medieval period. įenestrella interpreted by the Louvre as Horus on horseback spearing Set in the shape of a crocodile (4th century).ĭepictions of "Christ militant" trampling a serpent is found in Christian art of the late 5th century. In anticipation of the Saint George iconography, first noted in the 1870s, a Coptic stone fenestrella shows a mounted hawk-headed figure fighting a crocodile, interpreted by the Louvre as Horus killing a metamorphosed Setekh. Tiamat, the scaly, winged, foul dragon, and Apepi the powerful enemy of the glorious Sungod, were both destroyed and made to perish in the fire which he sent against them and their fiends: and Dadianus, also called the 'dragon', with his friends the sixty-nine governors, was also destroyed by fire called down from heaven by the prayer of Saint George. I doubt much of the whole story of Saint George is anything more than one of the many versions of the old-world story of the conflict between Light and Darkness, or Ra and Apepi, and Marduk and Tiamat, woven upon a few slender threads of historical fact. Budge makes explicit the parallel to pre-Christian myth: Wallis Budge in 1888, and estimated by Budge to be based on a source of the 5th or 6th century, names "governor Dadianus", the persecutor of Saint George as "the dragon of the abyss", a greek myth with similar elements of the legend is the battle between Bellerophon and the Chimera. The Coptic version of the Saint George legend, edited by E. It draws from pre-Christian dragon myths. The development of the hagiographical narrative of the dragon-fight parallels the development of iconography. Another stele shows the Dioscuri as Thracian horsemen on either side of the serpent-entwined tree, killing a boar with their spears. Horsemen spearing serpents and boars are widely represented in Roman-era stelae commemorating cavalry soldiers.Ī carving from Krupac, Serbia, depicts Apollo and Asclepius as Thracian horsemen, shown besides the serpent entwined around the tree. The iconography of the dragon appears to grow out of the serpent entwining the "tree of life" on one hand, and with the draco standard used by late Roman cavalry on the other. Is a direct continuation of the Roman-era " Thracian horseman" type iconography. The iconography of military saints Theodore, George and Demetrius as horsemen Origins Pre-Christian predecessors įurther information: Chaoskampf, Thracian horseman, Saint Theodore Tiro, Tetri Giorgi, Verethragna, Zahhak, and Perseus and Andromeda At first limited to the courtly setting of Chivalric romance, the legend was popularised in the 13th century and became a favourite literary and pictorial subject in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and it has become an integral part of the Christian traditions relating to Saint George in both Eastern and Western tradition. The legend was popularised in Western tradition in the 13th century based on its Latin versions in the Speculum Historiale and the Golden Legend. George, along with his fellow soldier-saints Demetrius, Maurice, Theodore and Mercurius had fought alongside them at Antioch and Jerusalem. ![]() The knights of the First Crusade believed that St. It reached Western Christian tradition still in the 12th century, via the crusades. The legend and iconography spread rapidly through the Byzantine cultural sphere in the 12th century. The oldest known record of Saint George slaying a dragon is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. ![]() The narrative has pre-Christian origins ( Jason and Medea, Perseus and Andromeda, Typhon, etc.), and is recorded in various saints' lives prior to its attribution to St. The narrative was first set in Cappadocia in the earliest sources of the 11th and 12th centuries, but transferred to Libya in the 13th-century Golden Legend. ![]() The saint thereupon rescues the princess and kills the dragon. This was acceptable to the villagers until a princess was chosen as the next offering. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. In a legend, Saint George-a soldier venerated in Christianity-defeats a dragon. Medieval legend Saint George Killing the Dragon, woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1501/4) ![]()
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