St. Valentine

Rebecca Miller

Feb 13, 2000 05:51 PM

Vimala C. Pasupathi

There are many differing stories about the history of St. Valentine and how he is connected to the holiday we continue to celebrate today on February 14. Some sources mention up to three different St. Valentines, each associated with February 14. One was a priest of Rome and another a biship of Terni. Two of the St. Valentines were said to have suffered martyrdom in the second half of the third century and little was known of the third one. The St. Valentine most commonly associated with Valentine's Day is the priest of Rome. There are various theories about how the name of Valentine came to be connected with the day on which lovers send tokens to one another. One is based on the belief across Europe through the middle ages that the birds began to mate on February 14. Many people reject this belief and believe that the connection between St. Valentine and the lovers is explained by the similarity between the Norman word "galantin," meaning a lover of women, and the name of the saint. This theory says that Galantin's Day was simply mispronounced, and that was what caused the confusion. While these theories do show up in many accounts of the history of Valentine's Day, the most believed theory is that Valentine's Day is a Christianized form of the ancient Roman feast Lupercalia which occured in February. During Lupercalia, which was celebrated on February 15, the young men of Rome were said to have drawn a lady's name from a jar and pin it to their sleeve for the duration of the feast. Some even say that this is where the expression "wearing your heart on your Sleeve" comes from. At the end of the feast, the young ladies were said to receive a gift or greeting from the young men in the name of Juno, a Roman Goddess also known as Hera. The young men were also to become the gallant of their young woman for the next year. It is said that the Christian clergy objected to this custon and substituted the names of the saints for the names of the young people and each person was to try to emulate the saint drawn for him or her during the next twelve months. This still does not explain how St. Valentine and Valentine's Day came to be associated with Lupercalia. In 270, there was a priest in Rome called Valentine who aided the Christians and secretly married couples. This is the St. Valentine who is most talked and written about and believed to be connected with Valentine's Day. He was apprehended and thrown in jail by the Romans. While in jail, St. Valentine was said to have fallen in love with the keeper's blind daughter, Julia. Some accounts say that he even cured her blindness. When this news spread of their love affair, Rome's leaders ordered Valentine to be beheaded. The morning of the execution, he was said to have sent Julia a farewell message signed "From your Valentine." He suffered martyrdom on the fourteenth of February. Well, the tradition of Lupercalia continued well after this until the year 496 A.D. when Pope Gelasuis outlawed the pagan festival. He ordered the change in Lupercalia as previously mentioned. The names of the women were replaced with the names of saints. While the lottery for women was banned by the church, the holiday was still used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It was now traditional for men to give their admired ladies handwritten messages of affection which included Valentine's name. This is how the modern Valentine's Day came about.