VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine’s Day occurs every February 14. Across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint and where did these traditions come from? We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month romance, and that St. Valentine’s day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.

          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 of 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 that injustice of the decree, defied Claude and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When his actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl- possibly his jailor’s daughter. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine”. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and most importantly romantic figure. 

               While some believed that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial, which probably occurred around A.D. 270. Some other people claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. It was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of Agriculture. 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. Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen women. These matches often ended in marriage. 

               Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity, but was outlawed as it was deemed “un-Christian” at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s day. During the middle age, it was commonly believed in France and England that this day was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance. The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. Valentine’s Day of romantic celebration in his 1375 poem “Parliament of Foules”. Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400.             

-SOUMYA SUCHARITA PANI  

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