Today is a busy Wednesday. Not only is it Valentine’s day, it’s also Ash Wednesday. I have put a lot of thought into what my first post would be for this Lent season. A week ago I thought I would start with one of the writing prompts I wrote in my journal to flesh out Ravenmaster book two. Yesterday, I started planning a post about the different branches of Christianity because my students and I were talking about how they have different names for the same faith. But on my way to work this morning I was listening to the radio. The DJs were playing fact or crap about Valentine’s Day facts. I found them so interesting, which has prompted me into a deeper dive of this hallmark holiday.
Well, let me rephrase that. Valentine’s Day, Saint Valentine’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Valentine is not a hallmark holiday. Yes, that is what it has morphed into. However, that is not how it began. Like most things, over time, the true meaning has faded away. Let’s start at the beginning, with a fest day.
Since the 8th century, the Roman Catholic church has celebrated the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14th. The Eastern Orthodoxy celebrates the feast day on July 6th. Here is where things get crazy. There is an ongoing argument about the establishment of the feast day. Some claim that in 496 Pope Gelasius I, proclaimed that this day would honor all with the name Valentine. “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.” But an anonymous source wrote almost a hundred years after Pope Gelasius’ death. Color me purple, but I’m a little jaded about believing anonymous no matter what century they come from.
However, the Catholic Encyclopedia (who knew there was such a thing) and other hagiography (the biography of saints and leaders ect.) do point to three men who may be the St. Valentine. One a priest and the other a bishop of Interamna being murdered in two different cities, on the same day, just outside Rome. Some believe that these two men might be the same men. The third man met his death in a Roman province of Africa. Apart from the number of companions who died alongside him, there is scarce information available. Eleven other saints share the name Valentine. However, February 14th claimed the lives of only three individuals.
Victim 1:
Valentinus was a priest or Bishop of Terni, in Italy. The man was placed under house arrest for preaching about Jesus. Despite being incarcerated, he still preached about his faith to all who would listen. One being a judge with a blind daughter. The judge challenged Valentinus’ faith. He said if Valentinus could restore his daughter’s sight, he would do whatever the man asked of him. Valentinus laid hands on the eyes and she could see again. Valentinus instructed the judge to destroy all the false idols around his house, fast for three days, and be baptized. Not only did the judge fulfill the man’s request, but he also freed all the Christian inmates and instructed the adults and servants of his household to be baptized as well.
However, Valentinus got into trouble again and the authorities arrested him for preaching the word of the Lord. Arriving in Rome, he met the emperor Claudius II. Things were going well, all things considered, for Valentinus, until he tried to convert Claudius to Christianity. Because Valentinus refused to denounce his faith, Claudius sentenced him to death. Valentinus was beaten with clubs and beheaded on February 14th 269.
Allegedly, before his execution, he wrote a letter to the judge’s daughter and signed it “from your Valentine.”
Victim 2:
There is a legend from the 3rd century, more fitting for the holiday, of a priest who would secretly perform Christian weddings. These weddings would allow the husbands the ability to escape joining Claudius’ army. Which was troublesome to the emperor since he was low on men. According to the legend, Saint Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment “to remind these men of their vows and God’s love”, providing the origin of hearts on Valentine’s Day. Adding to the holiday lore, the priest wore a purple amethyst ring with a cupid engraved in it. Cupid was a legal symbol in the Roman Empire. The soldiers would recognize the ring and ask them to perform the marriage. Because of its association with Valentine, the amethyst became known as the birthstone of February and was believed to have the power to attract love.
Okay, so now we know that two men that were allegedly murdered for love. One for his love of the Lord and the other for hosting a few weddings and becoming a pain in the butt of an emperor. There are those who believe that Valentine’s day was created to circumvent a Roman pagan holiday promoting health and fertility. Knowing the Catholic church and their love for a good fest day, why wouldn’t they baptize a pagan holiday? They’ve done it before many times.
But how did the death of men turn into the romantic flower giving, chocolate eating holiday we celebrate today? Where is the romance? For that, we turn to 14th century England and a famous poet Chaucer. In his poem, Parlement of Foules, there is a stanza about a dream vision. In this dream, we find the earliest references of St. Valentine’s Day is for lovers.
Poem Summary:
The poem begins with Cicero, a Roman statesman, falling asleep while reading a book. That’s when Scipio Africanus the Elder, a Roman General, appears and guides to a gate. Think Dante’s Inferno, nothing good is beyond the gate. Cicero passes through the gate and heads to Venus’s temple, lined with doomed lovers. Rather than humans fighting for love, there are three male eagles vying for the affection of one female. (And Chaucer, being Chaucer, he makes it comical.) The birds have a parliament for the female to decide who will win her heart. The males all present their case for the female’s heart, in which a comical debate breaks out until Nature herself ends the debate. None of the males persuaded Nature that they deserve the female. The female asks Nature if she may put off her decision until next year? Nature allows it, ruling that it is the right of the female to decide and have the free will to choose her mate. Nature allows other birds to pair off. Cicero’s dream ends with a song and the welcoming of spring. He is unsatisfied with the dream and returns to reading.
“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day
When every bird comes there to choose his match
Of every kind that men may think of
And that so huge a noise they began to make
That earth and air and tree and every lake
Was so full, that not easily was there space
For me to stand—so full was all the place.”
Outside of the poem, there are even more developments in the romantic holiday. The first annual celebration of love is the 1400’s where there is the alleged Charter of the Court of Love issued by Charles VI of France at Mantes-la-Jolie. It is said to be lavish festivities attended by members of the royal court, where they feasted and listened to amorous song and poetry competitions, jousting and dancing. The attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers. Charles’s queen Isabeau of Bavaria held this party, while they waited out the plague.
Charles, Duke of Orléans, wrote the earliest surviving Valentine in 1415 to his wife while he was held in the Tower of London.
“Je suis desja d’amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée…”
— Charles d’Orléans,
Margery Brewes to her future husband, John Paston, wrote the oldest English Valentine in 1477. She wrote “my right well-beloved Valentine”.
Ophelia mentioned Valentine’s Day in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (1600–1601):
“To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.”
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5
Two hundred and forty-seven years later, in Worcester Massachusetts, the first mass-produced Valentines of embossed paper lace were sold. Esther Howland based her Valentine’s on the English Valentine she received the year prior. Two years later, in 1849, Graham’s American Monthly deemed St. Valentine’s day to be a national holiday.
