Happy Valentine's Day



Ah, Valentine’s Day, seller of chocolates, herald of cards, day of little heart-shaped candies bearing awkward come-ons. This is the day when florists, card shops, and chocolatiers across the country strive to make it into the black. One story of the holiday’s origin harkens back to a priest in third century Rome. Emperor Claudius II held a belief attachments to home and hearth impeded the performance of his soldiers, therefore he forbid marriage. St. Valentine, disobeying his emperor, continued wedding young lovers, earning himself sainthood and martyrdom in one fell swoop. The problem is there are two additional St. Valentines recognized by the Catholic church and each is attributed in some way with the origins of the holiday we call St. Valentine’s Day. In fact, the only commonality between these stories is the emphasis on their main character being a sympathetic, heroic, and romantic figure.

As with many Christian holidays, St. Valentine’s day most likely was placed in mid-February as an attempt to Christianize a pagan holiday. Traditionally, February 15th was reserved for Lupercailia, a fertility festival associated with Faunus, a Roman agricultural god and the Roman founders, Romulus and Remus. The History Channel describes the ceremonies associated with Lupercailia as follows:

"To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage."

By the end of the 5th century Lupercailia had been declared un-Christian and banned. It was around this time that Pope Gelasius established February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day, but as with all new ideas, it took some time for the association between the holiday and romantic love to take hold.
 The oldest surviving written Valentine is a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans. He penned it while imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured during the Battle of Agincourt.

Go forth, my hert, with my lady;

Loke that we spare no business

To serve her with such lowliness,

That ye get her grace and mercy.

 

Pray her of times prively

That she keep trewly her promise

Go forth.

 

I must as a hertless body

Abide alone in hevyness,

And ye shal do wel with your maistress

In plesans glad and mery.

Go forth

The popularity of Valentine’s Day grew as the centuries passed and the holiday spread around the world. In the 18th Century, the typical Englishman considered February 14th a day for trifling in love and testing the temperature of the waters of romance. A sample of this attitude can be seen in the following excerpt from Poor Richard’s Almanac (1757):

This month bright Phoebus enters Pisces,
The maids will have good store of kisses,
For always when the fun comes there,
Valentine's Day is drawing near,
And both the men and maids incline
To chuse them each a Valentine;
And if a man gets one he loves,
He gives her first a pair of gloves;
And, by the way, remember this,
To seal the favour with a kiss.


This kiss begets more love, and then
That love begets a kiss again,
Until this trade the man doth catch,
And then he doth propose the match,
The woman's willing, tho' she's shy,
She gives the man this soft reply,
"I'll not resolve one thing or other,
Until I first consult my mother."
When she says so, 'tis half a grant,
And may be taken for consent.

By the middle of the 1700s, Valentine’s Day was being celebrated in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. By the mid 18th Century the tradition of exchanging small tokens of affection or hand written notes became established and by 1900 printed Valentine cards became widely available.

Thus, the modern Valentine's Day came to be. We've added roses and candy hearts to the mix and modern lovers are likely to exchange Valentine's texts, IMs, and update their Facebook status with cooing, but the traditions have essentially stayed the same. So, crack open the bubbly, warm up the fondue pot, unwrap that Whitman Sampler, and dim the lights - love has come to town!