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Across the country
every Valentines Day, gifts are exchanged between loved ones but why do we
celebrate in February and who exactly was Saint Valentine? History is rich with
stories of why Valentine's Day is celebrated and there are many popular
theories as to the origin of this celebration.
For eight hundred years
prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day, the Romans had practised a pagan
celebration in mid-February, Lupercalia, commemorating young men's rite of
passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a lottery in which young
men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. The girl assigned to each
young man in that manner would be his companion during the remaining year.
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Over
time the early Christian Church in Rome ventured to ‘Christianize’
the pagan element of this celebration. Deeming the lottery system of pairing
un-Christian they substituted the names of saints for those of maidens. Both
men and women were allowed to draw from the box and the game was to emulate the
ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year. Not surprisingly the
young Romans didn’t approve of the rule change.
Although the lottery
for women had been banned by the church, the holiday in commemoration of St.
Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek the affection of women and it
became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten
messages of affection, containing St. Valentine's name. The first Valentine
card grew out of this practice and February 14th has since become the day for
declaring your love by exchanging love messages, poems or small gifts such as a
bouquet of
Valentines
flowers.
But who was St
Valentine? In A.D. 270, a priest, Valentine, was beheaded by the emperor of
that time, Claudius II, who believed that single men made better soldiers than
those with wives and children. To ensure that he had a constant supply of
soldiers he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine didn’t support this
decree and continued to secretly marry young lovers. When Claudius discovered
this he first tried to convert him to paganism but Valentine reversed the
strategy, trying instead to convert Claudius. When he failed, he was stoned and
beheaded. |
Another legend has it
that Valentine was an imprisoned Bishop, locked away for his belief in
Christianity. Whilst serving his time in prison, it is believed he fell in love
with a young girl visitor, possibly the jailors daughter. Before his death, it
is alleged he wrote her a farewell letter signed, ‘From your
Valentine’; hence the tradition of omitting your name and signing cards
simply ‘From Your Valentine’.
Which St. Valentine
gave his name to our celebration remains a mystery but we do know that he was
chosen as the patron saint of love to take the place of the pagan god Lupercus
because he died on February 14th. Pope Gelasius honoured Valentine with
sainthood in 496 A.D. and changed Lupercalia from the 15th to the 14th and
named it St Valentines Day.
Although the 16th
century saw the first St. Valentine’s Day celebrations in Britain, it
wasn’t until the 17th century that giving flowers became popular. Roses,
having the distinction of representing love in all its forms and being the
favourite flower of Venus the goddess of love became the blossoms of choice.
Although we cannot know
for sure who St. Valentine was, one thing that cannot be disputed is the joy a
beautiful bouquet of Valentines Flowers, a long stemmed
red
rose or a
dozen
red roses (if you're feeling very romantic) will bring to your loved
one this Valentines Day. |
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