Earlier this week I wrote about who Saint Valentine was, or more accurately could have been. Today, I’m going to explore the origins of Saint Valentine’s Day and how this has morphed into what we now celebrate as a day of love.
The History Bit
Claudius II executed two different men called Valentine on 14th February in two separate years in the third century. They were both martyred by the Catholic Church and 14th February was proclaimed their feast day. Never missing an opportunity to eradicate pagan festivals, Pope Gelasius merged the feast of Saint Valentine with the pagan feast of Lupercalia, also celebrated on 14th February – how convenient.
The feast of Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture. Priests sacrificed a goat and a dog then dipped the goat hide in the sacrificial blood. They then proceeded to slap the crop fields and women with the bloodied hides. The women supposedly lined up to be slapped with goats hide and blood as they believed it made them fertile for the whole year.
As part of the festival, women also put their names in an urn and men would draw one out. The couple would then be paired for the day, or even the whole year according to some sources. The pairings would often result in a marriage. This matchmaking lottery is said to have been part of the celebrations as late as Tudor times when the gentleman would wear his sweetheart’s name on his sleeve and was duty bound to protect her. This may be where the phrase “wear your heart on your sleeve” originated.
Written Valentines became popular after 1400. Chaucer and Shakespeare both romanticised the day in their works and boosted its popularity. By the seventeenth century, lovers began to exchange small tokens of affection and by the 1900s mass produced cards had replaced written love notes.
Today it is estimated that 145 million Valentines are sold each year and the market is worth 20 billion dollars in the US alone.
Love It or Hate It
Valentine’s Day splits opinion, like most things. Some love it, some hate it. Perhaps it is due to the increasing pressure to break the bank and keep up with the over the top demonstrations of love and affection we have thrust in our faces thanks to social media? The day has also derived some amusing alternatives to celebrate the single life too. We have Galentine’s Day and SAD (that’s Single Awareness Day) and you can buy a card for that too. (Yes, I had to look it up as I mistook it for Seasonal Affective Disorder.)
However you celebrate Saint Valentine’s Day, or even if you don’t, never forget to be thankful that we have come a long way from being slapped with bloodied goat hide and being paired with some random person.
