Origin of Valentine's Day
As with many contemporary holidays and celebrations, Valentine’s Day, as observed on February 14th, has both early Christian and pagan roots. The most plausible legends surrounding Valentine place him in Italy during the Reign of Claudius II or Claudius the Goth (268-270 CE). With the eventual triumph of the Christian church in the 4th Century, Valentine was viewed as a martyr and venerated as a saint. Eventually, influenced by the medieval ecclesiastical calendar linking him to both fertility and the coming of light at the dawn of a new spring season, he became the symbol of love and of mating.
Roman Influences and Valentine’s Day Symbolism
The Roman festival of Lupercalia was celebrated at the time of the Ides of February. It was a celebration of love-making. Young Roman males, wearing the skins of slaughtered goats over their genital areas, struck young women with the thongs in imitation of the god Faunus or Pan. Anthropology Professor Anthony Aveni, detailing the celebration, likens it to a Scottish New Years ceremony. Lupercalia was a festival closely tied to fertility.
The Roman tradition, long ingrained in cultural and religious consciousness, gave way – like so many other pagan influences on the newly emerging religion of Christianity, to beliefs and practices important in the cycle of the Catholic ecclesiastical calendar. The feast of St. Valentine, for example, guarded against animal sickness and epilepsy. In the old Roman tradition, Faunus was the god of cattle.
Early Christian Legends of St. Valentine
The most accepted legend of the historical origin of St. Valentine corresponds to the 3rd Century CE during the rein of Emperor Claudius II or Claudius Gothicus. Claudius ostensibly outlawed marriage to fill the ranks of the depleted legions; only single men could serve. A certain priest named Valentine, however, preformed marriages secretly. Denounced and convicted, Valentine was jailed until the time of his execution.
While in prison, Valentine supposedly received notes of support from young Romans praising love over war. He also received flowers and other gifts. During his prison stay, he developed affection for the daughter of the jailor, and, according to Aveni, left her a note that was signed, “From your Valentine.”
Another tradition holds that Valentine was actually the bishop of Interamna, sixty miles from Rome, to where he had been banished. Valentine was brought to Rome and subsequently martyred. Another tradition states that Valentine gave sight to a blind girl in order to demonstrate the power of God, a power that brought light and consequently illumination. It was this particular tradition that legitimized his feast day celebration during the ecclesiastical period of light that began with Candlemas and ended with the February 22nd celebration “Cathedra Petri.”
St. Valentine and the “Birds and the Bees”
In “Parliament of Fowls,” Geoffrey Chaucer relates February 14th to birds choosing their mates: “For this was sent Valentine’s Day, when every fowl comes to choose his mate…” Although Chaucer died in 1400, the identification of St. Valentine’s Day with love and match-making became part of the early modern social and cultural values, particularly in England. It was the early 19th Century Romanticist movement, however, that encouraged a heightened resurgence of the holiday.
Valentine’s Day in the post-modern world has evolved into a commercialized celebration of love. Beyond this generalization, however, it is still a celebration of caring, giving, and devotion. A dozen roses sent to a loved one signed “From your Valentine” continues to evoke the same emotion felt by the legendary third century Valentine on his way to execution.
Sources:
Anthony Aveni, The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays (Oxford University Press, 2003)
John J. Delaney, Dictionary of Saints (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1980)
R. W. Scribner, Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London: The Hambledon Press, 1987)
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