(Cover image – © Shakespeare’s Birth Place)
If there is a single day that holds more power over hearts of people across the globe, it would be this day, Valentine’s Day. Never has there ever been a more emotional day than Valentine’s Day (excusing birthdays and Christmas, of course) as it wields so much power over those who believe in it. For some, it’s a day to spend with the person you love, showering them in unconditional love and affection, spending all your hard-earned money on spoiling them. Others, who may not be as unfortunate to have someone special in their lives, see this day as a cruel reminder of how lonely they are and can send them into hysteria and desperation to find someone to spend this day with. And apart from the disbelievers, there are those who—well, tend to let their anger out when it comes to being ‘forced’ to show affection or engage in a holiday focused solely on love—yes, they exist.
Across the globe, shops and businesses flood their premises with heart-shaped items. From teddy bears to chocolates to flowers and cards, even to clothes! Valentine’s Day is the one day a year where practically any business can make a profit, if they market correctly and appropriately to their target audience.
However, Valentine’s Day has not always been the cheerful, gift-giving holiday that we have always known it to be.
No, in fact it has a more—mysterious and slightly odd origin than you might expect as it is actually through an execution that this yearly tradition came to be, though its precise origins are not known hence why we have two different saints whose execution claims to be the namesake of this loving holiday.
Origins – when did this love-filled holiday start?
Though historians cannot pinpoint the precise moment when people started celebrating Valentine’s Day,—as it is quite impossible, as you understand—they believe that the earliest possible celebration of Valentine’s Day was actually during Ancient Rome through the festivities of the pagan holiday Lupercalia. Usually celebrated on February 15th, Lupercalia was a celebration of purifying the city and therefore promoting fertility and purity. During these festivities, men would strip themselves of their clothes, dance naked whilst sacrificing animals (specifically a goat and a dog) to appease their pagan gods before slicing off the ‘hide’ of these animals and preceding to whip young women with it, as a method of promoting fertility as if the sacrifices to the Gods had been blessed with the gift of bestowing fertility on these women. Of course, men in these times (as it was in the Tudor times many centuries later) believed that they were not at fault for infertility and that it was purely the women who could be infertile and should be the ones punished for inability to produce offspring. Sexism is an age-old tradition with each culture, it seems.
Which is why we are still suffering from it, apparently. It seems like a lifetime of being sexist has just stuck with us.
But, before I go on a tangent, let us continue.
Lupercalia was a very popular pagan festival and was one of the only ones still to be celebrated for 150 years after Christianity was legalised in the Roman Empire and destroyed all remaining forms of paganism. Some actually believe that Valentine’s Day (as it is celebrated on the 14th of February) is a Christiani-zed copy of Lupercalia but there is no actual proof of this. Lupercalia was only ‘brought to an end’, so to speak, in the late fifth century when Pope Gelasius rose to power and decided that in place of Lupercalia, the Catholic church declared February 14th a day of feasting in honour of the martyred Saint Valentine.
Saint Valentine – was there more than one?
Unsurprisingly, the name Valentine was a very popular name in the Roman Empire, hence why there is still some confusion over which exact Valentine is the famous Saint Valentine whose death is responsible for the reason behind we celebrate the importance and blessing of love on February 14th. According to historians’ estimations, it is believed ‘there are over 10,800 saints, of which there are more than 30 Valentines and even a few Valentinas’. {1}
Wow, so which one is it?
Well… we don’t know, as I have already said, there are multiple claimants.
What we do know is that there were two Valentines who might be the original Saint Valentine, though their stories are so similar that many historians believe it might be the same man but the evidence is certainly lacking.
In 269 AD, the first Saint Valentine was arrested by Emperor Claudius Gothicus during the Roman persecutions of Christians. He was charged with the act of ‘curing a woman of blindness and then converting her whole family to Christianity’. {1} When he was brought before the Emperor, who said he would merely imprison him (though he had already been placed under house arrest before this) if he should admit his wrongdoing and converted back to paganism, Valentine passionately stated that he would never renounce the ‘true’ faith and in anger, the Emperor ordered that Valentine be dragged out before the Prefect of Rome and was either beaten with clubs or stoned before he was beheaded. There is a legend behind the story that Valentine, after being imprisoned and awaiting his execution, he wrote the girl whom he cured of blindness a letter and signed it with ‘from your Valentine’ which may act as an origin of the famous tradition of sending love letters on this day—although another famous figure in history might have a better claim to this (which we will explore in just a moment).
For the second Saint Valentine, the story is similar in how he also performed a miracle on a young child and converted the family there afterwards. The Bishop Valentine of Terni was known far and wide for his magical ability to cure people with physical disabilities which prompted a father to send for the bishop to heal his only son who suffered from muteness and a deformed body (as he could not straighten his back, it is believed he might have had a hunchback). Naturally, the bishop answered the father’s plea and after a night of constant prayer beside the son, he emerged from the room completely healed, convincing the entire family to convert to Christianism as a result. After hearing this, the Emperor at the time ordered his execution as the Bishop refused to convert to paganism and just like the first, was beheaded on this very day.
So, there we have it. The two extremely similar stories of the origin of Valentine’s Day. It does make me wonder if these two Valentine’s were the same person. It would make a lot of sense, considering how it is said that Valentine had died after years of his miracles being observed by the Roman Emperor and if the second story is correct, then he would have been known far and wide enough to catch the attention of the Emperor and he might have done both the miracles of healing the boy of muteness and the girl of blindness at the time of his execution.
Perhaps but a more interesting question is how did the holiday emerge from being a celebration of Saint Valentine being martyred to a celebration of love and gift-giving?
The Tudors – how did they celebrate?
Despite Saint Valentine having been supposedly killed in the fifth century and the festival of Lupercalia having originated before that, it is not until the medieval period that Valentine’s Day would have its famous association with love. Many believe that it wasn’t until Geoffrey Chaucer, most famous for his work The Canterbury Tales, wrote his Parlement of Foules in the late 14th century where he first mentions Valentine’s Day that love was connected with this festive day:
“For this was on seynt Volantynys day.
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make”
- Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Fouules (Parliament of Fowls) {1}
This translates to: “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day. When every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”
Not long after, many other writers and poets began to associate love with Saint Valentine and this apparent symbolism of ‘birds choosing their mate’ on Valentine’s Day has now become almost entrenched in traditional folklore. Of course, as a result of this, another one of the greatest writers in history, Sir William Shakespeare, jumped onto the trend and included an allusion to this symbolism in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
“Good morrow friends. Saint Valentine is past. Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?”
- William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene I {1}
The oldest surviving ‘Valentine’s letter’ in existence belonged to the Duke of Orléans and was written in 1415, which makes historians believe that the Tudors (and their predecessors) engaged in exchanging love letters to celebrate this holiday. The Duke of Orléans wrote this letter to his wife whilst being imprisoned in the Tower of London for twenty-five years following capture during the Battle of Agincourt. Historians state that whilst he sent her many letters and poems during this time, this is one of the only one to survive to be examined today. In this letter to his wife, he is quite romantic and refers to her as his ‘Valentinée’ and it reads (translated originally from French):
“My very gentle Valentine, Since for me you were born too soon, And I for you was born too late. God forgives him who has estranged Me from you for the whole year. I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine.”
- Charles, the Duke of Orléans, a letter to his wife dated 1415. {1}
Might this be the time where people started the tradition of exchanging love letters between lovers that still lingers today? Perhaps… perhaps not. Then again, this is the oldest ‘Valentine’s letter’ in existence so there might have been others way before the Duke of Orléans that engaged in this tradition but whose letters have sadly been lost to history.
But I wonder—how did the Tudors celebrate Valentine’s Day?
The answer is simple—we just don’t know. Historians have made assumptions over the years based on very little evidence and having to turn to high members of society such as monarchs for any clues. So far, historians have deducted that the rich might have exchanged gifts and romantic (sometimes anonymous) letters with their loved ones but that the poorer members of society might not have engaged in this tradition considering how pricey things like ink, paper and even small trinkets were in those days. And most could not read or write so later on when Shakespeare’s plays were being performed, most poor people would go to watch a tragic play such as Romeo and Juliet or Othello to celebrate the holiday of love.
Monarchs such as Henry VIII have showed that love-letters were most definitely exchanged on this day as this can be seen through his numerous love letters and arranging gifts to be sent to his mistress, Lady Anne Boleyn. But whether this was just because he was deeply infatuated with her or that he actually participated in celebrating Valentine’s Day, we don’t know.
Valentine’s Day has certainly progressed from the Tudor era to what it is today in rapid speed. With the advancement of art and other creative forms, love became more and more associated with Valentine’s Day, especially in England although other countries took a little while to catch up. It wasn’t until the Revolutionary War that Valentine’s Day cards gained popularity in the United States after the war brought people closer and they began to write handwritten notes to their sweethearts in case the should lose them. Then with the advancement of mass production in the 1900s, the cards really began to take off and the rest of the world followed.
Well, that isn’t exactly true as there are some countries who do not partake in the celebration of Valentine’s Day. These countries include Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and some parts of India where it is opposed by political parties who believe that Valentine’s Day promotes Western values whilst the other countries listed do not celebrate it as it contradicts aspects of their religion which is a fair enough reason.
But altogether, Valentine’s Day has a place in the hearts of most across the globe and I’m sure that all of you are enjoying spending time with your loved ones today, most likely receiving roses, expensive perfume or being taken out to a nice fancy dinner. But if you have a moment, spare a thought for poor old Saint Valentine’s whose martyrdom and the loss of his head is the very reason you’re out celebrating today!
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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