Week 4 - History of Valentines Day and Commentary

A History of Valentine’s Day:
Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers to get together and share their bond. But this holiday’s origins are largely unknown. February has always been a month for romance and love, but St. Valentine, for whom the holiday is named, is shrouded in mystery. To date there are three catholic saints all named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend that strums the emotional heart strings is about a Valentine who was a priest during this century in Rome. During this time the Emperor Claudius the second came to the conclusion that single men made better soldiers, so using that simple logic forbade any and all marriages. This, being a terrible burden on the people and very unjust aroused the sympathies of one Valentine who, defying Claudius and his orders, continued to perform marriages for lovers in secret. However, upon his discovery Clauduis ordered the death of this Valentine. This story varies and one representation states how Valentine actually smuggled Christians out of Rome to avoid torture and persecution during this age. One version even tells how that Valentine when incarcerated in prison fell in love with a girl, possibly a jailer’s daughter, and it is alleged that he wrote her a love letter before his death signed, From your Valentine, a phrase still in repetitive use today. A very noble story, and one that could easily start such foundations as the Valentine holiday, but is it the true one? Let us observe another story.
Another version of the origins of Valentine’s Day state that it was an attempt to Christianize the celebrations of the Lupercalia festival which began around February 15th. This festival was dedicated to the Roman god of Agriculture as well as the founders of Rome Romulus and Remus and was when houses were ritualistically cleansed with sweeping and salt would be sprinkled inside. Additionally for this festival the Luperci members would gather at the legendary cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been reared by wolves and they would sacrifice a goat and a dog, for fertility and purification. The festival would eventually end in the tradition of using a lottery to pair off of young couples for the year, many of which would often end in marriage. This, however, was later deemed un-Christian in later years and outlawed. But St. Valentines days was officially declared by Pope Gelasius and placed on Feb 14th around 500 A.D. officiallizing the memorable holiday. Still to this day many are not sure if there was ever a real St. Valentine for whom the holiday originated or if February 14th was simply chosen because it was the beginning of the mating season for birds or some other simple piece of folklore. But to this day the oldest Valentine in known existence was a poem written by the Duke of Orleans to his wife during his term of imprisonment in the Tower of London. This was written in 1415 and is currently part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.

Commentary on Research for the History of Valentine’s Day:
History has always been an interesting topic to me. Google and other web based search engines have made the accessibility of history easier than ever, and I have to admit, this Valentine’s Day research paper was easy. By typing in ‘History of Valentine's Day you can find any number of websites that leap at the chance to tell you everything you wanted to know. The restriction placed on this assignment to not use a paying site was almost laughable. There is virtually no reason you would want to pay for this information, or almost any other with the internet out there, unless you want to make sure that the information you are getting is valid, but even so the likelihood of the information you would find on most websites being wrong is slim. People like to be right, they like to make sure their websites are correct and that you can reference them with no worries. Additionally there are several reputable websites out there for free that will also supply information of a confirmed nature as well, rendering most information pay sites out there virtually useless except for the one feature of having fewer ads and a guarantee, most of the time, for no popup ads. But all in all this project was very easy, with a topic as vastly broad and with such a large historical basis it was almost impossible not to find something to both intrigue the reader and to write about in general. I would be interested in seeing what a pay site would have to offer about this topic simply and for no other reason than to see if they can in any way justify the need for payment when the information is already at your fingertips.