Valentine is coming, where is your…? Haha, just kidding! Hi everyone, hope you're doing well? In a few days, on 14th February, we will celebrate Valentine's day, but do you know the story (-stories) behind this day?
Originally Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day was a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, through later folk traditions, has become a significant cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of romance and love in many regions of the world. Many theories emerged concerning this festival's origins. First, we must know the Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred.
One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Legend also tells of another story that happened during Valentine’s imprisonment after he tutored a girl named Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer. The legend states God restored Julia’s sight after she and Valentine prayed together. On the eve of his execution, Valentine supposedly penned a note to Julia and signed it, “From your Valentine.”
Other stories suggest that other named Valentine too may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured.
Despite the ambiguity surrounding Valentine and his life, the Catholic Church declared him a saint and listed him in Roman Martyrology as being martyred on February 14. Thanks to Saint Valentine’s reputation as a “patron of lovers,” he became synonymous with romance.
Valentine's day & the Lupercalia festival:
Lupercalia was an ancient pagan festival held each year in Rome on February 15. The festival began at Lupercal cave with the sacrifice of one or more male goats—a representation of sexuality—and a dog. The sacrifices were performed by Luperci, a group of Roman priests. Afterwards, the foreheads of two naked Luperci were smeared with the animals’ blood using the bloody, sacrificial knife. The blood was then removed with a piece of milk-soaked wool. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them 'cause they believed this would make them fertile. During Lupercalia, the men randomly chose a woman’s name from a jar to be coupled with them for the duration of the festival.
Often, the couple stayed together until the following year’s festival. Many fell in love and got married. Over time, nakedness during Lupercalia lost popularity. The festival became more chaste, if still undignified, and fully clothed men whipped women on their hands.
By the Middle Ages, Valentine assumed the image of heroic and romantic figure amongst the masses in England and France. Later, when Christianity spread through Rome, the priests moved Lupercalia from February 15 to February 14. Around 498 AD, Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as St. Valentine's Day to honor the martyr Valentinus and to end the pagan celebration. But we can notice that until today Valentine’s Day still uses some of Lupercalia’s symbols, (intentionally or not) such as the color red which represented a blood sacrifice during Lupercalia and the color white which signified the milk used to wipe the blood clean and represents new life and procreation. In this sense, Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said:
“It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”
During the Middle Ages, people also held a belief that birds started to look for their mate from February 14 (beginning of Birds Mating Season) which also reinforced the idea of Valentine's Day as the lover's day.
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I wish all a Happy and safe Valentine's day. Whatever you celebrate it or not, try to spread love and kindness around you as much as you can. May God bless you, take care.
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