This is the story of Saint Valentine, as remembered by me, as told by other people, and supplemented with probably much truer facts from Wikipedia.
According to Wikipedia, "Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy), was popular in Late Antiquity. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name."
The story that I remember comes from my pastor. She told us that Valentine was imprisoned and sentenced to death. During all of his imprisonment, he wrote copious amounts of love letters to his family and friends, expressing his undying love for all of them, and probably some other things like how boring it was to sit in prison all day. And he probably mentioned God a few times, as well. The idea is, acccording to my pastor, that we celebrate St. Valentine's Day on the anniversary of his death to honour not only his outstanding love for all around him, but God's love for all of us and our love for each other.
How true is that story? I'm sure that the Wikipedia research I am about to do will address that... [all of the following facts come from here.]
The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs. The Saint Valentine that appears in various martyrologies in connection with February 14 is described either as:
- A priest in Rome,
- A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), or
- A martyr in the Roman province of Africa.
The first time we really hear any sort of story about him, or see a picture, is 1493 in the Nuremburg Chronicle. He was imprisoned by Claudius II, or Claudius Gothicus when he discovered that Valentine was aiding Christians, who were, at the time, persecuted, in Rome. During his imprisonment, apparently Claudius "took a liking to this prisoner" , but when he tried to convert Claudius, he was sentenced to death. He was beaten, stoned, and beheaded, somewhere around 269, 270, or 273.
English eighteenth-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine's identity, suggested that Valentine's Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. This idea has lately been contested by Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas. Many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.
The official list of Catholic saints, the Roman Martyrology lists seven Saint Valentines, and the Russian Orthodox Church has more.
- a martyr (Roman priest or Terni bishop?) buried on the Via Flaminia (February 14)
- a priest from Viterbo (November 3)
- a bishop from Raetia who died in about 450 (January 7)
- a fifth-century priest and hermit (July 4)
- a Spanish hermit who died in about 715 (October 25)
- Valentine Berrio Ochoa, martyred in 1861 (November 24)
- Valentine Jaunzarás Gómez, martyred in 1936 (September 18)
The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled about 1260 and one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages, gives sufficient details of the saints for each day of the liturgical year to inspire a homily on each occasion. The very brief vita of St Valentine has him refusing to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius" in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Jacobus makes a play with the etymology of "Valentine", "as containing valour".
[The following facts come from here.]
Ultimately, his holiday was removed from the Catholic calendar because he was too unknown, but some groups of Catholics still celebrate his feast day in a religious context.
Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. In an embellishment to The Golden Legend provided by American Greetings, Inc. to History.com and widely repeated, on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine."
So it would appear that my pastor's story was nothing but a faerie tale, but that's okay.
As I've been doing this 'research', I've noticed a lot of allusions to Chaucer, and now, it would appear, I am about to find out what, exactly, Chaucer may have done to create this chocolate and hearts holiday.
In his Parlement of Foules [Parliament of Fowls], a poem to commemorate the first anniverary of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer wrote "For this was sent on Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate." "Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed out that in the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saints' day for Valentine of Genoa. This St. Valentine was an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307."
Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is set in a fictional context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among eighteenth-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars.
The bit about the Medieval period and the English Renaissance is also extremely interesting, and I just wish I could quote the whole thing, but that would be silly. Check it out; it mentions the "High Court of Love" established in Paris on 14 February, 1400 and love poems, the fact that Ophelia mentions the holiday in Hamlet [1600-1601], and John Donne using bird imagery in the same way that Chaucer did.
The late seventeen hundreds to early eighteen hundreds ushered in the wave of mailing pre-written Valentine's Day sentiments to women, and 1847 saw the first mass-produced valentines for sale in the United States.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that, in the US, men spend in average twice as much money as women.
The article goes on to talk about Valentine's Day traditions in North America and England, and it has a section for Similar Days for Honouring Love all over the world.
But I love Valentine's Day. Obviously, I'm a huge fan of purple and pink and heart shapes and chocolate, so how could I go wrong? Not to mention getting letters and candy ;D But it's so much more than that. It's a day to celebrate love in all of its forms, and that is precisely how I spend it. It doesn't have to be about romantic love, and it doesn't have to be about "Singles Awareness Day" or any of that. Never having had a boyfriend does not mean I can't celebrate my love for so many other people. I love my friends and my family to death, and I wouldn't be who I am without them. That is why I celebrate Saint Valetine's Day.
It feels go to be reminded that somebody cares about you. With that in mind, go out and tell the people that you love that they matter to you! Tell your best friend or your mother or that hobo on the street that you love them! It can really brighten someone's day :D
♥ I love you!! ♥
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