A History Of Valentine’s Day

Valentines Day.  A day romanticised by young women and young lovers the world over.

Of the approximated ONE BILLION Valentine’s sent worldwide each year – I did not receive one.  Not that I am at all bitter about this.

There are many supposed origins of Valentines Day.  One is attributed to the Matyr Valentine being executed by Claudius II for refusing to convert to Roman Paganism, but not before he healed some blind dude.  Another Roman legend is that, due to the fact that single men made better soldiers, marriage was outlawed, and that a priest by the name of Valentine thought this was a dumbass law and continued to marry people anyway. 

Of course this is the supposed “Christianised” version of V-Day.  The Pagan tradition of Luperci coincides with Valentines Day and is all about agriculture, sacrificing animals and having the men of the village give the ladies a slapping with the hide of a freshly skinned goat. The women didn’t mind because it supposedly made them fertile.  Later on in the day all the women would put their names in a big urn and the men would draw out a name and be paired with that girl for a year.  Kind of like a ancient match.com perhaps?

The romantic poet Chaucer supposedly made the first reference to Valentines Day as we know it, in the poem Parlement of Fouels to celebrate Kind Richard II & Anne of Bohemia in 1382.  The translation of this however is apparently widely disputed. 

In Ye Olde Medieval days there were numerous references to Saint Valentine’s Day amongst literature.  Even Shakespeare’s Ophelia (Hamlet: c1600) lamented about the possibility of not getting any loving (well I think so.. it’s been awhile since I studied Shakespeare at school). 

In 1797 a clever chap published The Young Man’s Valentine Writer.  A book full of romantic phrases for the uncreative and unsentimental to use on their lady of fancy.  It was full steam ahead from here on in, with Valentines being factory produced from the early 1800s (well done Industrial Revolution!). 

So from that very first Valentine (supposedly sent by St Valentine himself from a roman prison to a young lass he fancied) to today billion dollar mass produced card and chocolate industry, it seems that nobody can agree on the origins of Valentines Day.  And if a day is going to be celebrated then surely people should at least agree on why?

Or perhaps I am just saying this because I am, yet again, single on Valentines Day. 

*May be historically inaccurate. If so – I blame Wikipedia & history.com!