Saint George at Sanderum

 

Today is the feast of Saint George, the martyr most famous for his slaying of a dragon, and who might be one of the most famous saints in the modern cultural landscape. As I have explored in a previous blogpost, the motif of the dragonslayer - which has had an immense impact on post-medieval iconography - appears to have become the dominant rendition of Saint George sometime towards the end of the thirteenth century. Exactly what prompted this shift from focussing on his elaborate martyrdom to highlighting his victory over the dragon remains unclear. There are several explanations that might have contributed to this development, such as the impact of the crusader movement, or the establishment of chivalric orders. One factor that is likely to have contributed significantly towards this change in emphasis might be the legacy of Jacobus de Vorgaine's Legenda Aurea, a collection of saints' legends that was translated into several vernaculars from the fourteenth century onwards, and which brought the cult of Saint George more strongly into a non-ecclesiastical sphere. It is likely - although not conclusively established - that with segments of lay society having a greater impact on the cult of Saint George, the motif of the dragonslayer might have become more appealing than the image of George tortured on a wheel, his bones broken in the manner of an executed criminal. 

Whatever the reason for the shift towards Saint George as the dragonslayer, by the end of the Middle Ages this image was widely distributed and rendered by artists throughout Latin Christendom. For this year's feast of Saint George, I give you one late-medieval example from the church of Sanderum in Denmark, where a heavily-restored Saint George can be seen piercing his lance into the dragon in the arch dividing the choir from the nave. The image is most likely from the fifteenth-century, and the saint is shown in contemporary chivalric gear - albeit an idealised rendition. Saint George's cult in Denmark is most likely a consequence of impulses from Germany, where George was one of the most common members of the collegium of the fourteen holy helpers, although the constellation of this collegium was subject to local variations.