"Saint" George Got Around

Because of my interest in Ancient, Medieval and Renaissance Great Britain, I was quite familiar with St. George being "the Patron Saint" of England. (Sort of like Athena being the "patron goddess" of Athens and Artemis/Diana being the "patron goddess" of Ephesus, isn't it?) I had assumed, therefore, that he had British roots. But when we traveled through France what do I discover? The French also claim George as theirs! Then we visited Greece... lo and behold... they consider George theirs! I talked with a native Greek friend at home about it and he claimed George was originally a martyred Greek believer. I had trouble trying to figure out how a Greek martyr ended up slaying dragons and saving damsels-in-distress in England. I was just amazed at how this guy happened to "get around" to such disparate areas!

Then I opened up this month's issue of "Christian History and Biography" and got the REAL lowdown on George. It turns out George was really a ROMAN general and Christian martyr, probably under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (just before Constantine). Now I should have been suspicious when my Greek friend claimed George was a Greek [it's that Greek thing again], though I concede that he COULD have been a Roman officer of Greek descent. By the time of Diocletian, emperors, officers and soldiers hailed from all over the Roman Empire, not just Italy. At the very least, it makes sense that George would have been recognized as a Christian martyr in Greece at a very early date.

Perhaps he also became familiar in Roman Britain and Gaul during the Christian era of the Roman Empire and thus entered into their respective cultural histories. Then along came those terribly romantic and inventive French troubadours [who, btw, originally hailed from Britain (migrating to the Brittany region of France - hence the NAME "Brittany", when the Anglo-Saxons pushed their way into England and pushed them out) bringing all of their British legends with them]. They probably added all the interesting "details" to the story. That's my guess, anyway. Isn't history fun? Has anyone run across George anywhere else?