History of Valentine’s Day
Each year on February 14th, many people exchange cards, candy, gifts or flowers with their special “valentine.” The day of romance we call Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.
Every February 14, across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint, and where did these traditions come from? Find out about the history of this centuries-old holiday, from ancient Roman rituals to the customs of Victorian England.
The Legend of St. Valentine
The history of Valentine’s Day–and the story of its patron saint–is
shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated
as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it
today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.
But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this
ancient rite?
The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl–possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and–most importantly–romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.
The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl–possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today. Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and–most importantly–romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.
Origins of Valentine’s Day: A Pagan Festival in February
While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle
of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or
burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the
Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in
the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan
celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or
February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus,
the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus
and Remus.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.
Valentine’s Day: A Day of Romance
Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was
outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”–at the end of the 5th century,
when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It was not
until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated
with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France
and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season,
which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a
day for romance.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
Typical Valentine’s Day Greetings
In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico,
the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine’s
Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the
middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social
classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and
by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to
improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way
for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of
one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed
to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.
Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.
History’s Great Romantics
From poets and presidents to kings and courtesans,
history is filled with great romances and timeless love stories. This
Valentine's Day, discover some of history's most famous tales of love
and loss. From historic figures like Casanova, whose name has become
synonymous with romance, to India's Shah Jahan, who built one of the
world's most manificent buildings to honor his wife, to modern love
affairs like that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, history's
romantics have long had a place in the popular imagination.
Sappho
Much
uncertainty surrounds the life story of the celebrated Greek lyric poet
Sappho, a woman Plato called “the tenth Muse.” Born around 610 B.C. on
the island of Lesbos, now part of Greece, she was said to have been
married to Cercylas, a wealthy man. Many legends have long existed about
Sappho’s life, including a prevalent one — now believed to be untrue —
that she leaped into the sea to her death because of her unrequited love
of a younger man, the sailor Phaon. It is not known how much work she
published during her lifetime, but by the 8th or 9th century Sappho’s
known work was limited to quotations made by other authors. In the
majority of her poems, Sappho wrote about love — and the accompanying
emotions of hatred, anger and jealousy — among the members of her
largely young and female circle. Sappho gave her female acolytes
educational and religious instruction as part of the preparation for
marriage; the group was dedicated to and inspired by Aphrodite, the
Greek goddess of love and beauty. Her focus on the relationships between
women and girls has led many to assume that Sappho was a lesbian — a
word derived from the island and the communities of women that lived
there — but it is also true that the existence of strong emotions and
attractions between members of the same sex was considered far more
common and less taboo than in later years.Vatsyayana, author of the Kama Sutra
This
ascetic, probably celibate scholar who lived in classical India (around
the 5th century A.D.) is an unlikely candidate to have written
history’s best known book on erotic love. Little is known about
Vatsyayana’s life, but in his famous book — actually a collection of
notes on hundreds of years of spiritual wisdom passed down by the
ancient sages — he wrote that he intended the Kama Sutra as the ultimate
love manual and a tribute to Kama, the Indian god of love. Though it
has become famous for its sections on sexual instruction, the book
actually deals much more with the pursuit of fulfilling relationships,
and provided a blueprint for courtship and marriage in upper-class
Indian society at the time. In addition to his classic work on love,
Vatsyayana also transcribed the Nyaya Sutras, an ancient philosophical
text composed by Gautama in the 2nd century B.C. that examined questions
of logic and epistemology. The Kama Sutra has been translated into
hundreds of languages and has won millions of devotees around the world.Shah Jahan
Emperor
of India from 1628 to 1658, Shah Jahan has gone down in history for
commissioning one of history’s most spectacular buildings, the Taj
Mahal, in honor of his much beloved wife. Born Prince Khurram, the fifth
son of the Emperor Jahangir of India, he became his father’s favored
son after leading several successful military campaigns to consolidate
his family’s empire. As a special honor, Jahangir gave him the title of
Shah Jahan, or “King of the World.” After his father’s death in 1627,
Shah Jahan won power after a struggle with his brothers, crowning
himself emperor at Agra in 1628. At his side was Mumtaz Mahal, or
“Chosen One of the Palace,” Shah Jahan’s wife since 1612 and the
favorite of his three queens. In 1631, Mumtaz died after giving birth to
the couple’s 14th child. Legend has it that with her dying breaths, she
asked her husband to promise to build the world’s most beautiful
mausoleum for her. Six months after her death, the deeply grieving
emperor ordered construction to begin. Set across the Jamuna River from
the royal palace in Agra, the white marble fade of the Taj Mahal
reflects differing hues of light throughout the day, glowing pink at
sunrise and pearly white in the moonlight. At its center, surrounded by
delicate screens filtering light, lies the cenotaph, or coffin,
containing the remains of the Shah’s beloved queen.Giacomo Casanova
The
name “Casanova” has long since come to conjure up the romantic image of
the prototypical libertine and seducer, thanks to the success of
Giacomo Casanova’s posthumously published 12-volume autobiography,
Histoire de ma vie, which chronicled with vivid detail — as well as some
exaggeration — his many sexual and romantic exploits in 18th-century
Europe. Born in Venice in 1725 to actor parents, Casanova was expelled
from a seminary for scandalous conduct and embarked on a varied career,
including a stint working for a cardinal in Rome, as a violinist, and as
a magician, while traveling all around the continent. Fleeing from
creditors, he changed his name to Chevalier de Seingalt, under which he
published a number of literary works, most importantly his
autobiography. Casanova’s celebration of pleasure seeking and
much-professed love of women — he maintained that a woman’s conversation
was at least as captivating as her body — made him the leading champion
of a movement towards sexual freedom, and the model for the famous Don
Juan of literature. After working as a diplomat in Berlin, Russia, and
Poland and a spy for the Venetian inquisitors, Casanova spent the final
years of his life working on his autobiography in the library of a
Bohemian count. He died in 1798.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The
only child of the famous feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the
philosopher and novelist William Godwin, both influential voices in
Romantic-Era England, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin fell in love with the
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley when she was only 16; he was 21 and unhappily
married. In the summer of 1816, the couple was living with Shelley’s
friend and fellow poet, the dashing and scandalous Lord Byron, in
Byron’s villa in Switzerland when Mary came up with the idea for what
would become her masterpiece — and one of the most famous novels in
history — Frankenstein (1818). After Shelley’s wife committed suicide,
he and Mary were married, but public hostility to the match forced them
to move to Italy. When Mary was only 24, Percy Shelley was caught in a
storm while at sea and drowned, leaving her alone with a two-year-old
son (three previous children had died young). Alongside her husband,
Byron, and John Keats, Mary was one of the principal members of the
second generation of Romanticism; unlike the three poets, who all died
during the 1820s, she lived long enough to see the dawn of a new era,
the Victorian Age. Still somewhat of a social outcast for her liaison
with Shelley, she worked as a writer to support her father and son, and
maintained connections to the artistic, literary and political circles
of London until her death in 1851.Richard Wagner
King Edward VIII
Edward,
then Prince of Wales, was introduced to Wallis Simpson in 1931, when
she was married to her second husband; they soon began a relationship
that would rock Britain’s most prominent institutions — Parliament, the
monarchy and the Church of England — to their cores. Edward called
Simpson, whom others criticized as a financially unstable social
climber, “the perfect woman.” Just months after being crowned king in
January 1936, after the death of his father, George V, Edward proposed
to Simpson, precipitating a huge scandal and prompting Britain’s prime
minister, Stanley Baldwin, to say he would resign if the marriage went
ahead. Not wanting to push his country into an electoral crisis, but
unwilling to give Simpson up, Edward made the decision to abdicate the
throne. In a public radio address, he told the world of his love for
Simpson, saying that “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy
burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would
wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” Married
and given the titles of Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the couple lived in
exile in France, where they became fixtures of cafe society.Edith Piaf
Though
her life was marked by sickness, tragedy and other hardships from
beginning to end, the famous French chanteuse with the throaty voice
became the epitome of classic Parisian-style romance for her legions of
fans. Born Edith Giovanna Gassion in 1915, she was abandoned by her
mother and reared by her grandmother; while traveling with her father, a
circus acrobat, she began singing for pennies on the street. Discovered
by a cabaret promoter who renamed her Piaf, or “sparrow,” (and was
later brutally murdered), Edith enjoyed a meteoric rise to stardom and
by 1935 was singing in the grandest concert halls in Paris. Piaf was
married twice, but her great love was the boxer Marcel Cerdan, a world
middleweight champion who was killed in a plane crash en route from
Europe to New York in 1949. It was for Cerdan that Piaf sang the
achingly romantic “Hymne a l’amour,” celebrated all over the world as
one of her best loved ballads. After a near lifelong struggle with drug
and alcohol addictions, Piaf died of liver cancer on the French Riviera
in 1963. Her grave is one of the most visited in Paris’s world famous
Pere Lachaise cemetery.Kathleen Woodiwiss
Born
in 1939 in Alexandria, Louisiana, Kathleen Woodiwiss was a young wife
and mother when she began writing romantic fiction as a response to her
dissatisfaction with the existing “women’s fiction” of the time. In
1972, she published her first novel, The Flame and the Flower, set on a
Southern plantation in the late 18th century. Its historical setting and
theme, florid prose style and steamy sex scenes inspired a legion of
imitators, and its smashing commercial success sparked a new boom in
romance fiction. Woodiwiss was given credit for inventing the modern
romance novel in its current form: thick period melodramas packed with
an array of dashing and dangerous men and bosomy women in low-cut
dresses. She herself wrote 13 of these so-called “bodice-rippers,”
including “Shanna” (1977), “A Rose in Winter” (1982), “Come Love a
Stranger” (1984) and “The Reluctant Suitor” (2003). In an interview with
Publisher’s Weekly, Woodiwiss firmly denied the characterization of her
books as erotic, maintaining that she wrote only “love stories, — with a
little spice.” By the time of her death in 2006, Woodiwiss’s spicy love
stories had sold more than 36 million copies in 13 countries.Elizabeth Taylor
An
actress since early childhood, the dark haired, violet-eyed Elizabeth
Taylor has won two Best Actress Oscars (for “Butterfield 8″ in 1960 and
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1966) but is perhaps best known for
her rare beauty — and her epic love life. She has been married a total
of eight times — twice to the same man, the actor Richard Burton, whom
she has called “one of the two great loves of my life.” The first was
the film producer Mike Todd, who died in a plane crash in 1958. Taylor
and Burton met on the set of “Cleopatra,” when both were married to
other people; their affair soon made headlines around the world and
earned a public rebuke from no lesser authority than the Vatican. Their
own married life together was a study in extremes, soaked in alcohol and
characterized by a passion that was no less intense when they were
fighting than when they were getting along. After divorcing in 1973,
they found it impossible to stay apart and remarried in 1975, only to
break up four months later. Barred from Burton’s funeral in 1984 by his
last wife, Taylor still received legions of condolences, honoring her
and Burton’s place in the pantheon of history’s most celebrated love
stories.
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