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Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 25 2017, 07:52 PM

I've mentioned before that I like a bit of pageantry, but I have to admit to having some difficulty with St. George and his cross. George is a poor choice for national saint as he never set foot in England and we share him https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronages_of_Saint_George which is a bit weird for a patron saint. St George was adopted by Richard the Lion Heart while he was off on his religious war in the Middle East and that's not something I particularly want to celebrate, but most objectionably of all is the celebration of St George's blood-sport with the killing of a dragon. In the story, which is supposed to have happened in Libya, St George captures this dragon and then carts it off to the local city where he uses the threat of the poor captured creature to compel the inhabitants to convert to Christianity, and then kills the animal once the citizenry have duly obliged. So for me there's nothing to celebrate in the character of George and he's certainly nothing of an English archetype. As a Christian saint it's perhaps a bit much to complain about the religious iconography, but he is after all a national hero and as I'm not a Christian I'm also not entirely happy for the religious iconography of the cross to insinuate itself so overtly into my national imagery.


But there is an alternative. St Edmund the Martyr was the English national saint almost before there was a nation of England, and he has much better credentials as an English archetype. King Edmund was King of the East Angles at a time when the Vikings held large swathes of the East of what was still to become England. He was a Christian King who had the misfortune of being captured by the Vikings who made him the offer of renouncing his religion, but he refused so the Vikings tied him to a tree and killed him with arrows. For me his courage and perseverance make him a much more attractive national saint in a country where quietly doing the right thing is something we respect.


And he has a cracking flag too!

Posted by: Andy Capp Apr 25 2017, 11:15 PM

The whole thing's a load of baloney. We're English by chance and that's it. Nevertheless, yours is an interesting read.

Posted by: Turin Machine Apr 26 2017, 12:13 AM

Wrong (again) sigh! The White dragon flag is the battle flag of the saxons. Edmund's (or more accurately, Eadmund of East Anglia's) banner (or flag) was a 'device azure with three ducal coronets d'or' The first is a generic battle standard in common use 'till recently, the second was Edmund's personal flag. 😂. Nice try though. Oh, and there's no evidence of him being tied to a tree, that's a later use of an established iconography as displayed by Saint Sebastian and perpetuted by Ælfric of Eynsham. Can't trust anybody can you?

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 26 2017, 06:43 AM

That's fair enough, but I like the idea of a national day and I prefer the St Edmund myth to the present one - I happen to like dragons too, but you'll be telling me they don't exist next.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 26 2017, 06:52 AM

But I'm not rooting any claim to national superiority in the Edmund myth, I just think a bit of pageant and colour can be a good thing at times, and if we're to have a national saint I'm much more comfortable with Edmund than George.

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 26 2017, 07:32 AM

St George mate. Big English bloke onna horse, big scaley lizard, 's miffic innit!

Posted by: Andy Capp Apr 26 2017, 08:10 AM

I think perhaps the St George myth sums up olde religion: the my way or the highway attitude. Saints are there to prove or promote Christianity, so this dragon is out!

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 26 2017, 03:07 PM

That fits, support a loser, someone who failed to keep his nation safe. In the great tradition of Jeremy Corbyn.

Posted by: On the edge Apr 26 2017, 03:45 PM

The dragon bit is simply pantomime. The likelihood is that reality us rather more prosaic. Simply another Roman Soldier who after conversion to Chritianity refused to bow down to Caesar abd inspite of being offered a way out, paid the ultimate price. Like Edmund another martyr. We know a bit about martyrs in Newbury, hence the proposed statue of Winchcombe....

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 26 2017, 03:53 PM

Oh RLY??

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 26 2017, 07:19 PM

Yes, I read the dragon was a Roman motif - although there's nothing wrong with a bit of pantomime as long as everyone remembers that's what it is.

Posted by: Andy Capp Apr 26 2017, 07:26 PM

St George fared no better. Besides, Corbyn has never been the tested in government so your argument is bogus anyway.

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 26 2017, 07:32 PM

And never will. Phew!

Posted by: Turin Machine Apr 27 2017, 06:07 AM

Just a passing thought but shouldn't the labour party have its own patron saint? Perhaps the blessed St Werburgh? It was she after all who reputedly brought a dead goose back to life!

Posted by: Biker1 Apr 27 2017, 07:23 AM

Are you trying to point out that Simon's mates at the Town Council do this occasionally?

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 27 2017, 10:06 AM

Yeah but, that'll be different won't it.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 27 2017, 09:35 PM

I like a bit of pageant because it creates distinctiveness and community, and it can be funky and fun. There's no particular reason why pageant should have any deep historical basis, but some has, and I find that fascinating too. So if it's inclusive I think a bit of pageant is a good thing. Like this for example:


However, in local government pageant can become self-aggrandising, excluding people from their local government administration and giving those involved an unhealthy sense of entitlement. Like this example.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 06:45 AM

Though St. George wasn't English, he was a Greek officer in the Roman army who never even visited the British Isles.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 06:57 AM

Curiously enough both St. George and St. Edmund are venerated as Christian saints because they were executed for refusing to denounce their faith, the dragon-killing thing is just an arbitrary piece of fabled brutality that sat better with the Norman's than the piety of a Saxon.

Posted by: je suis Charlie Apr 28 2017, 09:06 AM

Edmund, went to defend England against invading heathens, lost, got taken prisoner, got his head cut off by blokes with funny names and big beards. Hmm, yeah, that resonates down the ages done it?

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 10:24 AM

You're missing the point. St. Edmund was defending East Anglia from European aggression, whereas St. George was the European aggressor provoking the hostility of the Muslim world by invading their country, and yes, that still resonates.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 10:46 AM

Worth mentioning that in Newbury we don't really celebrate the example of either St. George or St. Edmund who both had the fortitude to defy oppression and be killed for their belief, whereas the fat-cat industrialist, magistrate Winchcombe, who immolated Joscelyn Palmer and the other Newbury martyrs, is himself venerated with a portrait in the town hall and is soon to get a nine-feet tall statue in the high street.

Posted by: Turin Machine Apr 28 2017, 10:58 AM

Just as, Henry Viii, Elizabeth 1st and many other stalwarts of British history are emblematic of true 'Britishness' whilst also being mere products of their time. But then this is true of any nation, any group or sect. Everyone always reveres those in history who often have the bloodiest hands, even the blessed saint Edmund was guilty of ordering the savage and brutal slaying of Danish prisoners, something conveniently passed over by both the church and by most historians. Not everything is as black and white as it often appears.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 12:21 PM

Yes, I wouldn't dispute the thrust of that, though as I understand it the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had almost nothing to say about Edmund save for the manner of his death and that was the only near-contemporary evidence that he ever existed and even then was written twenty years after his death.

But heroes aren't people, they're ideals, personifications of some characteristic that the story-tellers want to promote, be they Nelson, Jesus, Achilles, Hazel, or Winchcombe. It's really just a matter of choosing what characteristics we want to promote and what we hope to get out of it.

I'm not so very much into the ideal of some martial zealot killing dragons in Syria, whereas the allegory of a Saxon King accepting death rather than bowing to tyranny speaks to me.

Posted by: Turin Machine Apr 28 2017, 12:59 PM

I think the truth is closer to the fact that he was dead meat anyway, a Mercian king captured by the Danes? Most English history at that time was written by clerics desperate to keep the ideals of Christianity alive, just look at the sheer amount of Saxon saints and why the are on the list its really staggering. So killed for failing to renounce Christianity? Doubt it, just gilding the lily.

Posted by: On the edge Apr 28 2017, 01:54 PM

Yer, there must have been another reason. Like all that bull we are taught about kids being hung in the 18th centuary simply because they'd lifted something worth more than a shilling. When really just frightners to get the little s---- off to Oz pronto.

Posted by: Simon Kirby Apr 28 2017, 09:09 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3TmzpwVfZY

Posted by: Turin Machine Apr 28 2017, 09:45 PM

Yay! Lisa, my favourite lil agitator and iconoclast! Bless.