[Vision2020] History of Saint Valentine's Day

[rforce at moscow.com]

Should't rely on unexamined Internet sites. Here's a more scholarly take,
which dismisses the Roman origin:

Valentine's Day   (14 February). For today's adolescents and young adults,
this is a highly popular festival, bolstered by the powerful greetings-card
industry and huge media coverage.

The custom of choosing sweethearts on Valentine's Day arose in court
circles in France and England in the 14th century, supposedly because birds
began mating on this date. Poems were composed for the event, the earliest
being Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls (c.1381), about rival bird-suitors
quarrelling on Valentine's Day. Some 30 years later, the poet John Lydgate
used the word ‘valentine’ both for the person loved and the poem sent, as
in modern English (‘A Valantine to Her That Excelleth All’, and ‘A
Kalendare’); in 1477, Margery Brews wrote to her fiancé John Paston as her
‘right wellbelovyd Voluntyn’. Why this particular date was chosen is
uncertain. Most likely, it counted as the first day of spring in whichever
French region invented the custom (many medieval calendars reckoned spring
began in February, either on the 7th or the 22nd). There is nothing in
legends about St Valentine to link him with birds or lovers, nor any
evidence supporting an 18th-century theory deriving the festival from the
Roman Lupercalia (15 February).

Upper-class Valentine customs are well documented, but there is little
information about the rest of society before 19th-century folklore
collections; it is quite feasible that most people took little notice of
the day until quite late on. Emphasis has changed over time, but the main
elements have been: (1) choosing someone to be your ‘Valentine’ by lot, by
accident, or deliberately; (2) gifts; (3) letters or cards, signed or
anonymous; (4) love divinations.

Pepys gives excellent descriptions of 17th-century Valentines, rarely
failing to mention the day; the details varied from year to year, showing
the custom was fluid. His entries for 1666, for example, include references
to drawing Valentines by lot, and complaints about the expense of several
presents he felt obliged to give the lady who had drawn him, for example ‘a
dozen pairs of gloves and a pair of silk stockings’ as late as 10 March.
More modest gifts, sometimes anonymous, are mentioned in 19th-century
accounts; thus, at Norwich, people laid packages on doorsteps, banged the
knocker, and rushed away (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 137–8). Besides
genuine presents there was a tradition of sending joky ones, or worthless
items grandly wrapped.

Sending special letters probably dates from the mid-18th century, and grew
steadily more popular. Special writing paper was available in the 1820s;
the commercially produced card appeared around 1840, and by the 1860s was
big business. Early examples are exquisite, expensive confections in lace
and satin, but more down-market printed cards gradually became the
norm—along with joke parodies and spiteful anti-Valentines. These are often
held responsible for the decline of the custom around the turn of the
century; it began to pick up again in the late 1920s, and mushroomed after
the Second World War. Currently Valentine's Day is going from strength to
strength; a recent development has been whole pages of messages in
newspapers and magazines.

Other customs and beliefs include, naturally, girls' love charms and
divinations, for example putting yarrow under one's pillow or turning
stockings inside out (Porter, 1969: 106). It was widely said that the first
person seen would be one's future spouse, and various strategies were
adopted to manipulate this omen; in 1662, Mrs Pepys spent the day with her
hands over her eyes to avoid seeing some painters working in her house.
Children in many areas took occasion to go from door to door in the early
morning, singing ‘Good morrow, Valentine’, and expecting cakes, fruit, or
money (Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. 147).

→ Jack B. Oruch, ‘ ‘St Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February’ ,
Speculum 56:3 (1981), pp.534–65;
Hutton, 1966: pp.146–50;
Wright and Lones, 1938: ii. pp.136–57; Folklore Society Cuttings File.


How to cite this entry:
"Valentine's Day"  A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and
Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford
University Press.  University of Idaho.  13 February 2005 
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t71.e1084>
> Greetings Visionaires -
> 
> As a matter of curiosity I googled "History of Saint Valentine's Day" and
> found the following at
> http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm: 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The History of Saint Valentine's Day
> 
> Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire.  In ancient Rome,
> February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno.  Juno was the Queen of the Roman
> Gods and Goddesses.  The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and
> marriage.  The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.
> 
> The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate.  However, one of
> the customs of the young people was name drawing.  On the eve of the
> festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of
> paper and placed into jars.  Each young man would draw a girl's name from
> the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the
> girl whom he chose.  Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire
> year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.
> 
> Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and
> unpopular campaigns.  Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting
> soldiers to join his military leagues.  He believed that the reason was that
> roman men did not want to leave their loves or families.  As a result,
> Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome.  The good Saint
> Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II.  He and Saint
> Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for
> this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the
> Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to
> have his head cut off.  He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February,
> about the year 270.  At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient
> custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts
> in honour of a heathen god.  On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan
> ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they
> were drawn by the men as chance directed.
> 
> The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away
> with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints
> for those of maidens.  And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of
> February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the
> celebration of this new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men
> choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year,
> arose in this way.
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Take care, Moscow, and have a Happy Valentine's Day.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>

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