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History of Valentine's Day
14/02/2002 15:26 - (SA)
Paris - Around the world, February 14 is celebrated as Valentine's Day,
a time when lovers traditionally declare their intentions or
indulge in the proffering of gifts to the object of their
affections.
And yet, although most people, if asked, could correctly assert
that the day is named after a Christian saint, few are able to
recount the details of his life.
That is hardly surprising, though, since the story of Saint
Valentinus is beset by confusion and contradiction, with even the
Roman Catholic Church, the absolute authority in such matters,
seeming to have difficulty in pinning the saint down.
According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, which one might expect
to be infallible on the subject, "at least three Saint Valentines,
all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under
the date of February 14".
But at least the Encyclopaedia helps to narrow the field down to
two men, by asserting: "One is described as a priest at Rome,
another as bishop of Interamna [modern Terni] and these two seem
both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and
to have been buried on Flaminian Way, but at different distances
from the city ... Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in
Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known."
Tradition tends to favour the Roman Valentinus, a priest who
died in the year 270, as the origin of the feast day, which,
incidentally, was dropped from the Catholic calendar in 1969.
According to one version of the tale, he defied the emperor
Claudius II by continuing to marry young couples long after
marriage had been outlawed by imperial decree, Claudius having got
it into his head that the shortage of recruits to the army was due
to the fact that married men made reluctant soldiers.
He was beheaded on the day which became February 14 in the
modern calendar and thus it became the feast day of lovers.
Another version of the history has it that Valentinus and St
Marius and his family assisted the martyrs persecuted under
Claudius and simply refused to relinquish his Christian faith even
under torture.
More romantically, and thus more befitting to the subsequent
tradition, he was also a physician who cured the sick and once he
was arrested, his jailer brought his daughter to him in the hope of
her regaining her sight.
Despite his prayers, the girl remained blind but moments before
his execution, Valentine called for paper and a pencil and wrote on
it "from your Valentine", wrapping it around a blossom which was
said to have restored the girl's vision when she received it.
A further variation on the theme, and yet more romantic still,
claims that it was because Valentine fell in love with the jailer's
daughter, Julia, and taught her history, arithmetic and the
rudiments of the Christian faith, that he wrote the valedictory
note wrapped around a crocus.
His death on February 14 seems to have coincided with a pagan
festival in honour of the goddess Februata Juno, in which boys
would draw the names of girls out of a hat to be their partner, and
despite the efforts of priests to suppress the custom, the practice
seems to have survived and become associated with the saint
himself. - Sapa/AFP
- SAPA
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