St. Valentine's Day Trivia
Valentine’s Day or Saint Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14 by many people worldwide. In the West, it is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by sending Valentine’s cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery. The holiday is named after two among the numerous Early Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
The Root of Valentine's Day
Valentine’s Day is believed to have it’s roots in the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, a fertility celebration commemorated annually on February 15. Around 496, Pope Gelasius I renamed this pagan festival Valentine’s Day and moved it to February 14.
Read More about the history of Valentine’s Day
Cupid
Cupid was the god of love in Roman mythology. The name Cupid is a variation on Cupido (“desire”), and this god was also known by the name Amor (“love”). It was commonly believed that Cupid was the son of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and this association between Venus and Cupid was quite popular in myth, poetry, literature, and art.
Read More on Cupid
First Recorded Valentine's Day With Love
The first recorded association of St. Valentine’s Day with romantic love was in the 14th century in England and France, where it was believed that February 14 was the day birds paired off to mate. This belief is mentioned in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, who wrote in the Parlement of Foules.
St. Valentine the person
Although there were several St. Valentines, most scholars believe Valentine’s Day was intended to honor a priest who attracted the displeasure of the Roman emperor Claudius II around 270. Claudius had concluded that single men made better soldiers, so he outlawed marriage for all young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of this decree, defied the order and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When his actions were discovered, Claudius II had him put to death.
On the evening before St. Valentine was to be martyred for being a Christian, he passed a love note to his jailer’s daughter, which read “From Your Valentine”.
Read More on St. Valentine
Shakespeare
Shakespeare refers to Valentine’s Day in Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 5) when Ophelia sings:
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.
Valentine's Card in the USA
In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther A. Howland (1828 – 1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. She took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received.
Read More on Esther A. Howland
Valentine's Day in Japan
In Japan, Valentine’s Day has emerged, thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, as a day on which women give chocolates to men they like.
Valentine's Day in the USA
Valentine’s Day was probably imported into North America in the 19th century with settlers from Britain.
Valentine Heart
It’s not clear when the valentine heart shape became the symbol for Valentine’s Day. Some scholars speculate that the heart symbol as we use it to signify romance or love came from early attempts by people to draw an organ they’d never seen.
Read More on the Valentine’s
