Liv Knecht, Sophomore
February 14th is the annual celebration of St. Valentine’s Day worldwide. It includes dinners, gifts, and candy or food. It’s that special holiday that either couples enjoy together or that singles spend with friends. But where did this holiday come from and why did it become an annual holiday?
February is the month of romance and along with it the famous Valentine’s Day. This holiday consists of both Catholic and Roman traditions, hence the name St. Valentine. Where did it start? St. Valentine was a priest who served the Roman Church in the third century. The Emperor of the time, Claudius the second, had ruled out marriage for young men believing that young single men were better for soldiers than married men with families. Valentine had seen this as a problem and decided to marry couples in secret, defying the Emperor. Valentine was discovered and sentenced to death. But that isn’t the only version of the holiday.
Another legend of the infamous St. Valentine is that he was helping Christians flee Rome in hopes to escape the harsh Roman prisons. Valentine had been imprisoned and while in jail, sent the first “Valentine” letter. This letter was addressed to a young woman with whom Valentine fell in love. The rumor was that she was his jailer’s daughter, who often visited him before his death. His last letter was signed with, “From your Valentine.”
Again, this is not the only version to be told throughout history. While some believe that it’s a holiday celebrating the saint’s death or burial, the holiday can also be known as a pagan festival that was celebrated during February. The Christian Church had made the festival that was celebrated on February 15th to celebrate Lupercalia. Lupercalia was a fertility festival in honor of Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture.
The way this festival started was that the priest of Luercai, an order made up of Roman priests, would gather in a cave that was believed to have been where the infants Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf: Lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. The goat’s hide was striped and dipped into the blood. This was then used to gently slap women and crop fields. The meaning behind this was for women it could make them more fertile. Later in the day women would put their names into a big urn whereas the bachelors of the city would choose a name and that woman and he would be paired for a year. Most matches ended in marriages.
St. Valentine comes from many different origin stories. It’s a holiday that has been celebrated for many years in the name of love or fertility one way or another. In today’s world, the holiday is commercialized making people buy flowers and candy and making dinner reservations to spend it with their loved ones or ones.
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