Written by Alana Harris
Edited by Adrian Wilson
Today, February 14th is celebrated with hearts, candy, flowers, and seen as a day for love and romance. Personally, it's one of my favorite holidays ( I love pink) but I never really knew what it was about or where it came from, besides the fact that there was probably some saint guy in history named Valentine who liked hearts and things, right? So I decided it might be fun to actually learn a little bit about it.
Whether you think it's a lovely holiday or created by the greeting card companies for profit, it actually has a few different legends depicting its origins.
One origin may be the pagan festival Lupercalia that was celebrated on February 15th.
The festival was believed to be connected to the legend of the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus and a celebration of a Roman god of fertility Lupercus. Unlike today's celebrations surrounding love, Lupercalia was much more dark, unsettling and bleak.
“Although Valentines Day shares its name with a martyred Christian saint, some historians believe the holiday is actually an offshoot of Lupercalia.” (History.com)
The celebration was believed to help health and fertility in the town, beginning at the cave where the she-wolf called Lupa fed Romulus and Remus. It involved priests' animal sacrifices of a goat and a dog then whipping women with animal hide. As well as pairing couples off in a lottery type manor, and a large feast. This celebration was abolished in the late 5th century with the rise of Christianity.
The holiday we know today, although believed to be derived from Lupercalia, was replaced by christian modernization. Pope Gelasius I forbade the practice of the celebration around the 5th century, but the holiday's history of a celebration of love wasn't until around the 14th century.
The Catholics had at least three different priests by the variations of the name Valentine, the legends are vague and mixed and mangled through time. “It is possible these are different versions of the same original account and refer to only one person.” (Britannica)
One legend depicts Valentine as a priest in the third century in Rome. After Gelasius II outlawed marriage, trying to create better soldiers, Valentine went against his ruling and performed marriages for young couples in secret, and was eventually found and executed.
There is also the legend of St. Valentine, another theory of how the holiday got its name, a priest or bishop St. Valentine, that there is not too much solid information about. In 1969 St. Valentine was actually removed from the General Roman Calendar due to lack of reliable information about him.
One Legend says that he was killed, February 14th, for helping Christians escape Roman prisons.
“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—who visited him during his confinement.”
It's said that he wrote her a letter signed ‘ From Your Valentine’ a phrase still used today.
Along with St. Valentine's legends of uncertainty, he had a very weird mixture of identifications, he was the patron saint of lovers, people with epilepsy, and beekeepers... As I said the Holidays origins are still uncertain but these are just some of the legends of Valentine's Day.
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