St.Valentine's Februa

Today, February 14, is St.Valentine Day. It is a day to celebrate love.

Happy St.Valentine's Day

Happy St.Valentine's!

“The rose is red, the violet’s blue,
The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou’d be you.”
 -- English nursery rhyme (Gammer Gurton's Garland, 1784)

The day was set up (in the 5th century) as a feast to commemorate the (violent) death of a 3rd century clergyman who ministered to persecuted Christians and also married young couples, which saved the men from being drafted as soldiers. That was not viewed favourably by authorities.

He was arrested and jailed, but then he tried to persuade the Roman emperor Claudius II to convert to Christianity. The emperor was not persuaded and instead ordered Valentine to be clubbed, stoned and beheaded.

However, before that, Valentine wrote a good-bye note to Julia, the daughter of his jailor, judge Asterius. Julia used to be blind and Valentine restored her sight with a miracle. Asterius was so impressed that he converted to Christianity himself, which got him also beheaded. The note to Julia was signed "from your Valentine", which started the trend of seeing Valentine as a patron of love and romance.

Cupid Booster Shot

The original purpose of St.Valentine's Day might have been less to celebrate St.Valentine and more just another (successful) attempt of early Christianity to suppress older Roman traditions and replace them with Christian equivalents.

For example, in the 4th century, Pope Julius I created a Christian alternative to the popular Roman Saturnalia by declaring that Jesus was born on December 25, thus creating Christmas.

Then, in the 5th century, Pope Gelasius I invented St.Valentine's Day, as a part of his long quest to suppress the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was a bloody and sexually charged "purifying" festival that celebrated Roman founders, Romulus and Remus.

Februarius

The festival was also known as Februatio, after the name of the purification instrument Februa (sort of a whip), derived from an older Etruscan word for purging. The name of the month, Februarius (now February) was then derived from that word.
FebruaWhips

The idea of associating St.Valentine's day with romantic love was probably helped when the great Geoffrey Chaucer produced a poem celebrating the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia (both 15 years old at the time.)

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make...

(For this was Saint Valentine's Day,
When every bird cometh there to choose his mate...)

Anne was the daughter of Charles IV, the King of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Emperor (considered by Czechs to be one of the most important persons in their history.)

Note: The marriage was intended to form alliances to help with the Hundred Year's War. That effort did not meet with a great success. However, Anne ended up being influential on the means of transport for the nobility:

She helped to popularize the sidesaddle,

Side Saddle

meant to provide the appearance of modesty for skirted female nobility riders.

Elizabeth II Riding

To meet her future mate, she arrived in a carriage from Kocs, Hungary. People of Kocs were so good at making comfortable carts (with steel-spring suspension) that their town's name lead to the vehicle's name in many languages: English coach, German Kutsche, French coche.

The town even put the image of a coach in their crest.

Kocs

Due to Oxford University slang for private tutors (who "carried" students through an exam), the English word coach now also means "a person who trains athletes" or "provides guidance".

Similarly to Christmas, St.Valentine's Day is now viewed by some as a rather commercial affair,

promoted to get people into stores to buy stuff.

Cartoon: Eat It Here

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