Secularizing the Saint
41
155); in Marston (Oxfordshire) it amounted to 33.9% (Weaver and Clark 1423), and in London’s St. Mary Woolnoth it was as high as 89.2% of that parish’s
income during the reform years (Brooke and Hallen xvi-xxvi).
When Norwich resumed its St. George Day celebrations under
Elizabeth, Sts. George and Margaret were removed. Guild records from 1559
state: “at the ffeast nexte to be holden for the company and fellowshipp of Saynt
George for dyuerse cawses Weyed and considereid Ther shalbe neyther George
nor Margett But for pastyme the dragon to com In and shew hym self as in other
yeares” (REED Norwich 47). When detailed records concerning the procession
resume in 1581, costs for the dragon, musicians and standard bearers are listed,
but there is no mention of Sts. George and Margaret. Similar costs continue
annually until 1591, wfren all costs for a St. George’s Day procession cease. For
whatever reasons, authorities in Norwich after 1591 seemed to have believed
that even a St. George’s day celebration minus St. George was inappropriate.
Snap the dragon, however, lived on as a secular, civic symbol. Snap appeared in
the annual inaugural processions for the lords mayor well into the eighteenth
century (REED Norwich xxvii.47, 58, 63-102). Keeping the dragon in the city’s
annual processions maintained the link St. George had to the citizens of
Norwich despite the religious reforms of the sixteenth century, which sought to
eliminate the cults of the saints.
No records from before 1554 are extant from Chester which detail a St.
George’s Day celebration, but then most of Chester’s extant documents do not
pre-date the mid-sixteenth century (REED Chester xi). A Breviary, begim by
Archdeacon Robert Rogers (died 1595) and continued by his son David
(between 1609 and 1637), suggests that celebrations in Chester date at least to
the appearance of Chester’s Corpus Christi and Whitsun plays of the fourteenth
century. St. George celebrations may, in fact, have overlapped these events.
Rogers’s Breviary states: “And before these playes there was a man ^\^lich did
Ride as I tak it vpon St Georges daye throughe the Cittie” (REED Chester liii-iv,
338-9). The fact that St. George’s Day celebrations appear in Chester’s records
annually each year during Mary’s reign also suggests a certain antiquity for the
event. Though records from earlier than the mid-sixteenth century are lacking, it
seems unlikely that St. George Day celebrations only came into being at that late
date.
A total of 562 pence, equal to about 98 days’ wages for a laborer, was
spent on St. George’s Day events between 1554 and 1558 (REED Chester 5562). Other than the fact that mock prisoners were paid and banners were carried,
there are few other details about these celebrations. Yet records dating from the
reign of King James detail the resumption of games and plays as held in the past
which dictate: “St. George fighting with ye dragon &c.” (REED Chester 338).
With the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 the celebration of St. George’s
Day ceased. And with good reason, since attempts to continue the Whitsun Day
plays in 1572 and 1574 in the face of ecclesiastical and royal prohibitions