Valentine's Day

 

Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine.^[5] The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae).^[6] Valentine of Rome^[7] was a priest in Rome who was martyred about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome,^[8] and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.

Valentine of Terni^[9] became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino).^[10]

The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.^[11]

No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the 14th century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.^[12]

Saint Valentine's head was preserved in the abbey of New Minster, Winchester and venerated. But there is no evidence that Saint Valentine was a popular saint before Chaucer's poems in 14th century, not even in the area of Winchester.^[13] Saint Valentine's celebration didn't differ from the celebrations of many other saints, and no church was ever dedicated to him.^[13]

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feast day of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14."^[14] The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Second Vatican Council calendar. February 14 is also celebrated as St Valentine's Day in other Christian denominations; it has, for example, the rank of 'commemoration' in the calendar of the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion.^[15]

Legends

Saint Valentine of Terni and his disciples.

 

The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were expounded briefly in Legenda Aurea.^[16] According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
Since Legenda Aurea still provided no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

There is an additional modern embellishment to The Golden Legend, provided by American Greetings to History.com, and widely repeated despite having no historical basis whatsoever. On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he would have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to the blind daughter of his jailor Asterius, signing as "From your Valentine."^[17][13]

Attested traditions

Lupercalia

Main article: Lupercalia

There is no evidence on any link between the modern romantic connotations of modern Saint Valentine's Day and the rites of the ancient Roman festival, despite many claims by many authors.^[18][13] The celebration of Saint Valentine didn't have any romantic connotations until Chaucer's poetry about "Valentines" in the 14th century.^[19]
Popular modern sources link unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St. Valentine's Day, but prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed.^[19] Earlier links as described above were focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love. In the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.
In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. Pope Gelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia.
Alban Butler in his Lifes of the Principal Saints (1756-1759) claimed without any proof that men and women in Lupercalia drew names from a jar to make couples, and that modern Valentine's letters originated from this custom. In reality, this practice originated in the Middle Ages, with no link to Lupercalia, with men drawing the names of girls at random to couple with them. This custom was combated by priests, for example by Frances de Sales around 1600, apparently by replacing it with a religious custom of girls drawing the names of apostles from the altar. However, this religious custom is recorded as soon as the 13th century in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, so it could have a different origin.^[13]

Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Occleve (1412)

Chaucer's love birds

The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer^[20] Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

["For this was Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]
This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia.^[21] A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381.^[22] (When they were married eight months later, they were each only 15 years old).
Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed out that Chaucer could be referring to May 2, the celebration in the liturgical calendar of Valentine of Genoa, an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307.^[23]
Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is set in a fictional context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentine's Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present".^[24][13]
There were other three authors who made poems about birds mating in Saint Valentine's Day around the same years: Otton de Grandson from Savoy, John Gower from England, and a knight called Pardo from Valencia. Chaucer most probably predated all of them, but, due to the difficulty of dating medieval works, we can't know for sure who of the four had the idea first and influenced the others.^[25]

Medieval period and the English Renaissance

Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.^[26][27] The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orléans to his wife, which commences.

Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée...

—Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1–2^[28]

At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.^[29]
Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600–1601):

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

John Donne used the legend of the marriage of the birds as the starting point for his Epithalamion celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England, and Frederick V, Elector Palatine on Valentine's Day:

Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is
All the Ayre is thy Diocese
And all the chirping Queristers
And other birds ar thy parishioners
Thou marryest every yeare
The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue,
The houshold bird with the redd stomacher
Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon
The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine
This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine.

—John Donne, Epithalamion Vpon Frederick Count Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth marryed on St. Valentines day

The verse Roses are red echoes conventions traceable as far back as Edmund Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene (1590):

She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.^[30]

The modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in the collection of English nursery rhymes Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784):

The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.^[31][32]

Valentine's Day postcard, circa 1910

Modern times

In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man's Valentine Writer, which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unable to compose his own. Printers had already begun producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines," and a reduction in postal rates in the next century ushered in the less personal but easier practice of mailing Valentines. That, in turn, made it possible for the first time to exchange cards anonymously, which is taken as the reason for the sudden appearance of racy verse in an era otherwise prudishly Victorian.^[33]
Paper Valentines became so popular in England in the early 19th century that they were assembled in factories. Fancy Valentines were made with real lace and ribbons, with paper lace introduced in the mid-19th century.^[34] In the UK, just under half of the population spend money on their Valentines and around 1.3 billion pounds are spent yearly on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts, with an estimated 25 million cards being sent.^[35] The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt.^[36] As a writer in Graham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."^[37] In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828–1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts.^[38][39]

Child dressed in Valentine's Day-themed clothing.

Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English Valentine she had received from a business associate of her father.^[40][41] Intrigued with the idea of making similar Valentines, Howland began her business by importing paper lace and floral decorations from England.^[41][42] The English practice of sending Valentine's cards was established enough to feature as a plot device in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (1851): "I burst in with my explanations: '"The valentine I know nothing about." '"It is in your handwriting", said he coldly.^[43] Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary."^[39]
Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.^[4] The mid-19th century Valentine's Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the United States to follow.^[44]
In the second half of the 20th century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry.
The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent each year in the US. Half of those valentines are given to family members other than husband or wife, usually to children. When you include the valentine-exchange cards made in school activities the figure goes up to 1 billion, and teachers become the people receiving the most valentines.^[38] In some North American elementary schools, children decorate classrooms, exchange cards, and are given sweets. The greeting cards of these students sometimes mention what they appreciate about each other.
The rise of Internet popularity at the turn of the millennium is creating new traditions. Millions of people use, every year, digital means of creating and sending Valentine's Day greeting messages such as e-cards, love coupons or printable greeting cards. An estimated 15 million e-valentines were sent in 2010.<sup>[38]

References:</sup>

1. 
   
2. ^ Henry Ansgar Kelly, in Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine (Leiden: Brill) 1986, accounts for these and further local Saints Valentine (Ch. 6 "The Genoese Saint Valentine and the observances of May") in arguing that Chaucer had an established tradition in mind, and (pp 79ff) linking the Valentine in question to Valentine, first bishop of Genoa, the only Saint Valentine honoured with a feast in springtime, the season indicated by Chaucer. Valentine of Genoa was treated by Jacobus of Verazze in his Chronicle of Genoa (Kelly p. 85).
3. ^ Oxford Dictionary of Saints, s.v. "Valentine": "The Acts of both are unreliable, and the Bollandists assert that these two Valentines were in fact one and the same."
4. ^ "Valentine of Rome"., catholic-forum.com
5. ^ "Saint Valentine's Day: Legend of the Saint". novareinna.com.
6. ^ "Valentine of Terni". catholic-forum.com.
7. ^ "Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni". virtualmuseum.ca.
8. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Valentine". newadvent.org.
9. ^ The present Roman Martyrology records, at February 14, "In Rome, on the Via Flaminia near the Milvian Bridge: St. Valentine, martyr."
10. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Henry Ansgar Kelly (1986), "The Valentines of February", Chaucer and the cult of Saint Valentine, Davis medieval texts and studies, 5, BRILL, pp. 58-63, ISBN 9789004078499
11. ^ Calendarium Romanum ex Decreto Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Vaticani II Instauratum Auctoritate Pauli PP. VI Promulgatum (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, MCMLXIX), p. 117
12. ^ See February calendar listed here [1]^{[dead link]} on the Church of England website.
13. ^ Legenda Aurea, "Saint Valentine", catholic-forum.com.
14. ^ "The History of Valentine's Day". History.com.
15. ^ Michael Matthew Kaylor (2006), Secreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and Wilde (electronic ed.), Masaryk University Press, p. footnote 2 in page 235, ISBN 80-210-4126-9
16. ^ ^{a b} Jack B. Oruch, "St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February" Speculum 56.3 (July 1981:534–565)
17. ^ Oruch, Jack B., "St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February", Speculum, 56 (1981): 534–65. Oruch's survey of the literature finds no association between Valentine and romance prior to Chaucer. He concludes that Chaucer is likely to be "the original mythmaker in this instance." Colfa.utsa.edu
18. ^ "Henry Ansgar Kelly, Valentine's Day / UCLA Spotlight".
19. ^ "Chaucer: The Parliament of Fowls"., wsu.edu
20. ^ Kelly, Henry Ansgar, Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997), ISBN 90-04-07849-5. Chapter 6 The Genoese St. Valentine, p. 79. Kelly gives the saint's day of the Genoese Valentine as May 3 and also claims that Richard's engagement was announced on this day. Iol.co.za^{[dead link]}
21. ^ Oruch 1981:539.
22. ^ Ansgar, 1986, Chapter 5, Grandson, Pardo and Gower, pp. 64-76
23. ^ "Domestic Violence, Discourses of Romantic Love, and Complex Personhood in the Law". Melbourne University Law Review 211 (Austlii.edu.au). 1999. Retrieved 2011-08-06.
24. ^ "Court of Love: Valentine's Day, 1400"., virtualmuseum.ca
25. ^ A Farewell to Love in wikisource
26. ^ History Channel, historychannel.com.
27. ^ Spenser, The Faery Queene iii, Canto 6, Stanza 6: on-line text
28. ^ Gammer Gurton's Garland (London, 1784) in I. Opie and P. Opie, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), p. 375.
29. ^ Gammer Gurton's Garland, original 1810 version. Also 1810 version reprinted in 1866 that uses more modern grammar like "should" instead of "shou'd".
30. ^ Charles Panati (1987). Extraordinary origins of everyday things. p.57. Perennial Library, 1987
31. ^ Vivian Krug Hotchkiss, Emotions Greeting Cards, VH Productions, mailbag@emotionscards.com (1910-02-14). "Emotionscards.com". Emotionscards.com. Retrieved 2011-08-06.
32. ^ "Valentine's Day worth £1.3 Billion to UK Retailers". British Retail Consortium.
33. ^ Schmidt 1993:209–245.
34. ^ Quoted in Schmidt 1993:209.
35. ^ ^{a b c} "Americans Valentine's Day". U.S. Greeting Card Association. 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-16.^{[dead link]}