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By David Booker
Once upon a time, around the third century A.D., there was a St. Valentine. He wasn’t a saint at the time; simply a Christian priest serving in Rome and his clerical actions against the Roman Empire would land him in jail. According to the story and history, Emperor Claudius II decided sometime around 270 A.D. that single men made better warriors; therefore, he decreed that young, single men could not marry. He believed this ensured a ready supply of soldiers. However, Valentine believed that such a decree was unjust and continued, in secret, to perform weddings for young couples. Eventually, Valentine was discovered, captured, and ordered put to death.
One account of Valentine’s last days says that while he was waiting to be executed, a young girl often visited him. Some say she was the jailor’s daughter. Valentine fell in love with this visitor, and before his death he wrote her a letter, which he signed “From Your Valentine,” a phrase that has gained some notoriety in the intervening years. Since most people of this time did not know how to read, and this was particularly so for young ladies and especially so for young ladies of the social status of a jailor’s daughter, it casts some doubt as to the facts of this account. But facts and romance often have little to do with each other, and by the Middle Ages the now Saint Valentine was one of the most popular saints in France and England.
However nice, the story does not end there. You see, the Romans had a fertility festival around February 15th called Lupercalia. This celebration was dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture and to Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome. For the Romans, February, not March, was the beginning of spring. Houses and dwellings were swept out and further cleansed by sprinkling salt and spelt, a type of wheat, throughout the interiors. Roman priests would sacrifice a goat, symbolizing fertility, cut the goat into strips, and then dip the strips in the goat’s blood. Women and fields of young crops were then gently slapped with the hides, this in the hopes of making both fertile in the coming year. There are also some records that say unattached young women then put their names in a big urn. Eligible young men then each drew a name out the urn. For the next year, the man and woman were a couple. This arrangement many times ended in marriage.
In an effort to end this festival, which he deemed un-Christian, in approximately 498 A.D., Pope Gelasius outlawed Lupercalia. Toward that end, he decreed February 24th as St. Valentine’s Day, making him the “lovers’ saint,” with a greater emphasis on saint instead of lover. He hoped people in accepting Saint Valentine would begin to act more like the saint in his religious life. Instead, they latched onto the more romantic aspect.
Today, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and the United States. According to the Greeting Card Association, approximately 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year. That is second only to Christmas, when approximately 2.6 billion cards are sent. In the 1700s, Americans exchanged handmade cards. In the 1840s, the first mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards appeared. Today, women purchase close to eighty-five percent of all Valentine’s Day cards. So, to you gentlemen reading this, what are you getting that special someone this Valentine’s Day?
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