The story of the Palestinian who became VERY English

St George is the patron saint of England, but how did a Roman soldier bear in Palestine who never went to England get that honor?
The story of the real St. George is the simple tale of a Roman officer in the early 4th century AD who refused to renounce his Christian faith and was executed for it…and that’s it, sorry no dragons.
However in the medieval era Saints became associated with certain roles, Mary was the mother of all women, St. Honoré is the patron saint of bakers and as St George was a soldier, he became the patron saint of knights, soldiers, and men of war.

For a religion about peace, Christianity has been calling on military based miracles for centuries. It started with the Pagan Emperor Constantine who had visions of the cross before his pivotal battle at the Milvian Bridge. That was in the 4th Century AD so by the era of the crusades there had been more than 600 years of calling on God/Jesus/Saints to help out in a time of violence.

George became the protector of knights in battle and he appears by the sides of the crusaders at the Siege of Antioch during the First Crusades, his description at the battle is a matter of fact like all the other nobles that featured in the siege and following battle- the logic is why wouldn’t the warrior saint be helping this Christian pilgrimage to reclaim the Holy Land?

However, we have to go to the 14th century to see the specific connection with England. In the first half of the 14th century, Edward III King of England also claimed the French crown triggering the dynastic feuding that would later be dubbed “the Hundred Years War”. In 1346 the French (with lots of Genoese Crossbowmen) and the English (with LOTS of Welsh archers) faced each other at Crecy.
By the end of the day the French nobility had been massacred, the volleys of Longbow arrows punctured the French armor and the French barely got to the English front lines (also Edward used the first cannons in battle on that day too). If victory was heavenly sent than clearly, the warrior saint had deserted the French. This logic evolved into- “well if the French had been abandoned, then the English had been shown special favor”. So St George was clearly blessing the English. Therefore it was on a bloody, corpse-strewn battlefield in France that George became “English”.

Although it's worth noting that the English by no means has a monopoly on this saint, he's also the patron saint of Portugal, Russia and of course Georgia, the country that's named after him. The real George (if that was even his name) of course never visited any of these places.

Back to Britain, Saint Patrick, often dubbed the most famous Irishman in the world, wasn’t Irish he had earlier been enslaved by Irish pirates so he was either English or Welsh, Saint Andrew never went to Scotland. Only Saint David the patron saint of Wales was a man from the country he became a patron of.