Years before anybody had heard of Saint Valentine to warm the heart and inject passion into the season, mid-February was already an exciting time for lovesick young people. As early as 400 years BC, ancient Romans held a popular yearly competition as an act of worship to their god of shepherds, Lupercus. Young women's names were written down and put inside a box and then selected blindly by eager young men. The young people then found themselves legally joined for the next twelve months.
In the third century AD, the militaristic emperor Claudius II prohibited young males from getting married -- because he thought that unattached youths could fight harder in battle.
It is believed that a Christian bishop, Valentine, dared to disagree with his Emperor and disobeyed the law and performed secret marriage ceremonies until Claudius learned of his disobedience and first imprisoned him, and finally caused him to be martyred for his faith on February 24th, 270.
According to legend, while he was incarcerated, Valentine fell deeply in love with his guard's daughter and when he was finally taken to be killed, he left her a message signed, 'From your Valentine.'
Using the name of the martyred priest as an excuse, the by now established Christian Church, in AD 496, took the opportunity to get rid of the pagan ancient lottery run in the name of the god Lupercus and so made some changes of their own to the rules of the event:
Henceforth, any young person, male or female, would randomly choose from the box, but now they wouldn't get the expected year of 'marriage' (and most likely the sexual gratification that came with it), they now had to pick out a Saint whose Christian attributes they were expected to spend the next year emulating.
What a crushing disappointment that must have been for the lusty youngsters in Roman days!
This new 'celebration' day was called after Saint Valentine whose selection, more than two centuries after his martyrdom, was intended more to displace the traditional god Lupercus than from any honest reverence towards love.
As so often happens, ingrained public loyalty to old ideas was more powerful than new political ideology -- especially when as unpopular as this and Saint Valentine's name never really stopped being associated with lovers. The young men of Rome, deprived of their lottery, started instead handing paper notes to the young ladies they admired on February 14th.
So it was that the modern habit of sending Valentines cards and messages was effectively begun more than one-and-a-half millennia ago!
The very first modern-day card that is still in existence is in the collection of the british Museum in London. The card was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife in 1415. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London at the time and so outpourings of love were probably at an intense level!
Five hundred years ago the Bishop of Geneva wanted to restart the yearly 'emulate a saint' lottery, but the people were not much interested. February 14th was by then too firmly associated with lovers for the Church to successfully interfere.
In the early Regency period, in 1797 a British publisher, a very enterprising fellow, sold a pamphlet called 'The Young Man's Valentine Writer' which contained hundreds of pre-written love poems for young men with more passion than poetry in their souls.
Sending Valentines cards anonymously not surprisingly started in Victorian times. The publicly highly repressed Victorians secretly loved anything sensual and passionate, but outwardly were obliged to display a veneer of respectful purity. As a consequence the messages in their cards became ruder and ruder, while the senders were able to maintain their respectability behind a respectful anonymity.
The earliest known of Valentine's cards in America, Esther Holland set a price of up to $35 for a single card. And this was in 1870!
As a matter of interest love messages are traditionally ended with an 'x' because back when reading and writing was a rare skill, it was legally acceptable for a person to draw a cross as their signature. So that the mark would carry weight, the person signing would be expected to kiss the cross they had written -- much the same as they would kiss a Bible. Unsurprisingly the written 'x' became a written substitute for a kiss.
May you have a love-filled Valentine's day! X
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