|
 February
14 is Valentine's Day. Although it is celebrated as a lovers' holiday
today, with the giving of candy, flowers, or other gifts between
couples in love, it originated in 5th Century Rome as a tribute to
St. Valentine, a Catholic bishop.
For eight hundred
years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day, the Romans had
practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young
men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a
lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from
a box. The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be
his sexual companion during the remaining year.
In an effort to do
away with the pagan festival, Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change
in the lottery. Instead of the names of young women, the box would
contain the names of saints. Both men and women were allowed to draw
from the box, and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they
drew during the rest of the year. Needless to say, many of the young
Roman men were not too pleased with the rule changes.
Instead of the pagan
god Lupercus, the Church looked for a suitable patron saint of love
to take his place. They found an appropriate choice in Valentine,
who, in AD 270 had been beheaded by Emperor Claudius.
Claudius had determined that married
men made poor soldiers. So he banned marriage from his empire. But
Valentine would secretly marry young men that came to him. When
Claudius found out about Valentine, he first tried to convert him to
paganism. But Valentine reversed the strategy, trying instead to
convert Claudius. When he failed, he was stoned and beheaded.
During the days that
Valentine was imprisoned, he fell in love with the blind daughter of
his jailer. His love for her, and his great faith, managed to
miraculously heal her from her blindness before his death. Before he
was taken to his death, he signed a farewell message to her, "From
your Valentine." The phrase has been used on his day ever since.
Although the lottery
for women had been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in
commemoration of St. Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek
the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the
ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing
Valentine's name.
The first Valentine card grew out
of this practice. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by
Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife. He was imprisoned in the Tower
of London at the time.
Cupid, another symbol of the
holiday, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus,
the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine
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