Emili Beüt and Belenguer
Sant Jordi is not a pond, there are numerous relics in many places, since he is a saint revered throughout the world, and the towns have always been interested in owning these memories, holding them in great esteem, as Banyeres is a good example. But undoubtedly the most important relic of the Holy Knight is his head, which in Italy is kept after enough vicissitudes and incidents have passed through the centuries.
Because in the 14th century it was in Livàdia, in central Greece, it is possible that he came from the Holy Land or from Constantinople where the saint was highly revered.
In those lands he was serving the Byzantine government from 1303 a 1305, a Company of troops, to what historians usually call the "Great Catalan Company", but that in reality it was made up of subjects from the entire Crown of Aragon, or be Aragonese, Valencians and Catalans, fighting the Turks in Asia Minor, i spending my late, in 1310, to the orders of Gualter I of Brienne, who was the last Frankish duke of Athens. By stopping paying those mercenary troops, relations were broken and hostilities took place, dying on the battlefield in 1311 walter, who five days earlier had made a will, granting a monetary bequest to the church of San Jordi in Livàdia, which had the head of Sant Jordi as its main relic, which immediately passed to those of the Great Company during the conquest of the eastern part of central Greece.
The fame that the relic achieved in the first half of the 14th century reached the Crown of Aragon, where the Holy Knight was held in great veneration, that they had long ago, possibly in the 13th century, the warriors returning from fighting the Moors in the Crusades.
Peter the Ceremonious reigned then, king of Aragon and Valencia and count of Barcelona, who was very devoted to Sant Jordi, to the extent that he wore his badge in his clothing, and it was precisely he who intensified the cult.
As soon as this monarch heard of the existence of the relic in Livàdia, logically showed the greatest interest in him coming to the territory of his jurisdiction, putting into play all the means to obtain it. To that end he wrote in 1354 to all those who could influence Frederic d'Aragó-Randazzo, then Catalan-Sicilian Duke of Athens and Neo patria. And still the following year he personally sent Francesc Colomer to Sicily and Greece, a court personage, instructing him to explain his intention to build a monastery somewhere in his domains where the head of Sant Jordi was to be preserved. But everything is useless: the relic remained in Livàdia, having moved her to the castle, possibly for security reasons.
later on, in 1377, Frederic III died, the Duke of Athens and Neo Patria, and two years later the duchies became dependent directly on the Crown of Aragon. Peter the Ceremonious believed that the opportunity had arrived to achieve his wishes. In 1381 appointed three important Catalan nobles resident in Greece to join the Order of Sant Jordi d'Alfama, which was established in Catalonia and Valencia, and prayed to the Athenian Vicar General that he would invest them with the mantles proper to the Order and obtain from them the vows of loyalty and homage to the king. A year later, a detachment of the Order was established in Livàdia Castle, naturally with the king's complacency, since there was the relic so “longed for. Meanwhile the domains of the Crown of Aragon in Greece had begun to fluctuate, a somoure’ls, and a Florentine adventurer occupied Athens in 1388.
Peter the Ceremonious died in January of 1387 without having seen his ambitions regarding the head of Sant Jordi satisfied; his son and successor, Joan I, don't forget the interest, and continuing the management, in 1393 he wrote to the Governor of Sardinia, from whom he learned that another Gascon soldier adventurer had also occupied Livàdia, finding the Jordanian relic, which the king was informed that it was possible to get it, because the new owner had great friendship with Guillem Ramon de Montcada, a Catalan-Sicilian magnate son of a former Vicar General of the Greek duchies, and the monarch's brother, Martí the Human, could influence his son Martin the Younger, then Duke of Athens and Neo Patria. All springs were actively touched, because that adventurer wanted to sell the relic to King Richard II of England. But none of the two suitors got it.
In 1395 John I died, and while the rule of Greece had passed to the Turks. And anyway we ignore it, the head of Sant Jordi was in the possession of the Catalan nobleman Aliot de Cauoena, who acquired by marriage the island of Aegina.
Martí I l'Humà already reigned in the Crown of Aragon, who following the trajectory of their monarchic predecessors, in 1399 wrote to his son Martí, king of sicily, who entrusted a vassal, Joan Poyllo, great friend of Aliot, get the relic, which the king himself asked for, announcing to send Poyllo to her. We do not know the immediate circumstances, but the fact is that the following year there was news that the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus arrived in Paris with three religious from his court who claimed to bring the much-desired head of Saint George, and that they offered to sell it to Martí l'Humà, who, however, was suspicious and eventually found out that they were embezzlers, and that they did not have the authentic relic, of which in 1402 the king resumed the arrangements to acquire it directly from Aliot de Caupena, writing to him, but without obtaining positive results. About seven years passed when the monarch learned of a planned trip from Alcoi to Catalonia, he thought about the opportunity to get hold of the relic, and so he wrote it to him. But Aliot never made the trip, and hopes disappeared.
Martí the Human died, the designated successor in Casp, who was of Castilian origin, alien to these spiritual concerns, undoubtedly he would even ignore the interest that previous monarchs had for the relic. But still his son, Alfonso the Magnanimous, he remembered, perhaps because of his extended stay in the Italian peninsula, and he felt the desire to possess her. It is said that he sent a corsair for her, a miraculous event occurring, which motivated the head of Sant Jordi to remain in Aegina, island that remains the property of the Caupena family, but that nevertheless he had to request the protection of the Venetians, and when Antonello de Caupena died without direct heirs in 1451, left Aegina in Venice. Learned the Senate in 1462 that such an important relic was there, arranged for his solemn transfer to the Benedictine Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, installed on another existing island in the south of Venice, in which the religious had settled in the 10th century.
How will it be?, the head of Sant Jordi has been following an itinerary full of incidents through time, a trajectory that researcher Kenneth Setton has perseveringly studied, providing interesting data for the historiography of Sant Jordi Màrtir, the highly revered Patrón de Banyeres.
