History of Valentine's Day......
The history of St Valentine's Day, from its pre-Christian origins, involving nudity and whipping, to its present incarnation as a commercial free-for-all driving huge sales of chocolate, flowers and jewellery
In ancient Rome, 13, 14 and 15 February were celebrated as Lupercalia, a
pagan fertility festival. This seems to be the basis for a celebration of love
on this date. It was marked in a subtly different way in those days, however.
According to Noel Lenski, classics professor at the University of Colorado at
Boulder, speaking in the National Geographic, young men would strip naked and
use goat- or dog-skin whips to spank the backsides of young women in order to
improve their fertility; an early IVF, if you will.
A Christian known as Valentine of Terni is martyred in the reign of
Emperor Aurelian. Little is known of his life, except that he was made Bishop
of Interamna (now Terni) in AD 197 and died not too long after. He was
apparently imprisoned, tortured and beheaded on the Via Flaminia in Rome for
his Christianity by the order of a Roman prefect with the oxymoronic name of
Placid Furius. According to legend, he died on 14 February, but that is likely
a later embellishment.
Another Christian, Valentine of Rome, is martyred, this time under
Emperor Claudius. A priest or bishop in the city, he was apparently arrested
for giving aid to prisoners. While in jail, he is said to have converted his
jailer by healing his blind daughter's sight. According to another, later
version, he is said to have fallen in love with the daughter, sending her a
note saying “From your Valentine”, but this is apocryphal. In yet another,
equally unlikely version, Claudius was claimed to have banned young men from
marrying, so that they would make better soldiers, and Valentine was arrested
for secretly carrying out weddings. Like his earlier namesake, Valentine of
Rome is supposed to have died on 14 February, but – again – this is
implausible.
The then Pope, Gelasius, declared 14 February to be
St Valentine's Day, a Christian feast day. This is likely to have been an
if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them approach to the still-popular pagan festival
of Lupercalia.
Geoffrey Chaucer writes his Parlement of Foules (or
“Parliament of Fowls”), which is widely taken to be the first linking of St
Valentine's Day to romantic love. Celebrating the engagement of Richard II of
England and Anne of Bohemia, he wrote: “For this was on St. Valentine's Day/
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate.” However, it is thought that
this may have referred to 2 May, the saint's day in the liturgical calendar of
Valentine of Genoa – this would be a more likely time for birds to be mating in
England.
AD 1400
On St Valentine's Day a court is opened in Paris,
the High Court of Love, dealing with affairs of the heart: marriage contracts,
divorces, infidelity, and beaten spouses. A few years later, Charles, the Duke
of Orleans (a Frenchman, inevitably) writes the first recorded Valentine's note
to his beloved, while imprisoned in the Tower of London following capture at
the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.
AD 1601
St Valentine's Day has entered the popular
consciousness to the extent that one William Shakespeare mentions it in
Ophelia's lament in Hamlet: “To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,/All in the
morning betime,/And I a maid at your window,/To be your Valentine.”
The passing of love-notes becomes popular in
England, a precursor to the St Valentine's Day card as we know it today. Early
ones are made of lace and paper. In 1797, the The Young Man’s Valentine Writer
is published, suggesting appropriate rhymes and messages, and as postal
services became more affordable, the anonymous St Valentine's Day card became
possible. By the early 19th century, they become so popular that factories
start to mass-produce them.
AD 1847
Following the English tradition, Esther Howland of
Worcester, Massachusetts, starts producing cards – using the newly available
and much cheaper paper lace – in the United States.
AD 1913
If you felt cynical, you might call this date the
beginning of the end for St Valentine's Day as a genuinely romantic event, and
the start of its reinvention of a savagely imposed regime of sugar-coated tweeness
designed to chisel spare cash out of lovers and would-be lovers worldwide:
Hallmark Cards produce their first Valentine. Now the date is the flagship
“Hallmark Holiday” - together with Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day and so on, a
series of celebrations notable more for the need to spend money than any
heartfelt sentiment.
AD 1929
The St Valentine's Day Massacre. A savage and
bloody event in itself – five Chicago gangsters lined up and murdered with
machine guns, apparently at the behest of Al Capone – but at least it's a break
from the unending stream of saccharine that the history of St Valentine's Day
otherwise entails, and so is welcome here.
Mid-1980s
The commercialisation continues: noting the sales
effect of the holiday on chocolate, flowers and cards, the diamond industry
gets involved, promoting St Valentine's Day as a time for giving jewellery. The
“tradition” takes off.
AD 2009
Valentine's Day generates an estimated $14.7
billion (£9.2 billion) in retail sales in the United States.
AD 2010
An estimated 1 billion St Valentine's Day cards
will be sent worldwide this year, making it the second most card-heavy
celebration after Christmas.
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