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HISTORY OF VALENTINE’S DAY

~(Possible) Origins of Saint Valentine’s Day~

Well, there are actually quite a few theories around the history of Valentine´s day.
To start with the name supposedly stems from 1 of possible 3 different religious guys, all called Valentine or something similar like Valentinus.
Each of the three has a different story that could help define why Valentine’s day is all about love, LOVE, love…

Three Saint Valentine’s:

First to mention is the story of a priest called Valentine in third-century Rome.
Under Emperor Claudius II, marriage was forbidden as single men were regarded as being better soldiers than being married and having children.
But Valentine wasn’t having it and bounded men and women in marriage on the sly.
When his sneaky ways of bringing lovers together were discovered he was put to death.

Then we have Saint Valentine of Terni, a bishop.
Is he the true namesake of Valentine’s day perhaps?
He also lived under the reign of Claudius II and he apparently tried to help Christians escape from being tortured in prison.
Of course, he didn’t get away with it either and he had a similar demise as Valentine, the priest.

And then we have an imprisoned Valentine who sent the first “Valentine” greeting ever after he fell in love with a young girl.
This girl was possibly his jailor’s daughter, who regularly came to visit him.
But here the story blurs though (pardon the pun), cause one tale also tells that he cured this girl he fell in love with of blindness.
Anyway, he apparently sent a letter ending with “from your Valentine”, the famous Valentine expression still in use today.

So, there you have it, that was a little slice of the history of Valentine´s Day right there already…
We can conclude that all three are sort of quite romantic heroïc men.
But don’t you think that the last Valentine above fits the realms of what Valentine’s day is all about the most too?

~Or could Valentine’s Day stem from a Pagan festival?~

Come on, let´s delve a little deeper into the history of Valentine´s day.

So, at this moment we might now think we celebrate Valentine’s Day in February to salute the anniversary of one of the 3 Valentine’s deaths.
But, it might actually be because of a Pagan Festival.
The Christian church possibly decided that they wanted to make the pagan celebration of Lupercalia more Christian.
Lupercalia is celebrated in the middle of February, so that would be Feb the 15th.
It was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

Some of the details of the festival tradition are quite cruel and included sacrificing animals.
But to entice fertility in women and crop fields alike, strips of the hide of a goat dipped in blood, would be gently whipped on the fields and the women.
This ritual was thoroughly welcomed by women, believe it or not…
Later on, ladies would put their name in a big urn and the Roman bachelors would flock to pick a name from the urn.
This tradition often resulted in marriage.

~Valentine´s Day and Do, as the Romans do~

Yes, there are more theories on the subject where Valentine’s Day adheres from, but as you can tell from all the above we see that it’s fairly Roman-centered.
And that is not thát weird at all.
Valentine’s Day is all about love and…Romance, right?
Well, do you know where the word ‘romance’ comes from?
I am sure you can guess now!

The word ‘romance’ started to win terrain in the 17th century.
Romance or Romantic was used to describe a type of story that was written in a romance language.
The romance language was the offspring of Latin in areas that had once been Roman provinces.
And it so happens that these stories were mostly about love and adventure set in scenic spots.
We would now not think twice about calling these spots, romantic spots.

Any which way, mes chéries, have a loved-up, romantic Valentine’s Day!

~*~