St. Valentine, Who was he and why do we celebrate him?

This is the article featured in February's edition of the Ferry County View... enjoy!

It seems as though that time of year has come around, the season of minor holidays. Certain days in the year most currently focused to get people to spend money. We kick off this season with St. Valentine's Day. So who is this Valentine character and why does he have a whole day dedicated to him? The history of this romantic holiday is shrouded in legends and mystery, containing both ancient Roman and Christian traditions.

One of the many legends says that Valentine was a priest that secretly married soldiers to their sweethearts in third century Rome. During this time Emperor Claudius II had outlawed marriage for young men, under the ideal that single men made better soldiers than those with families. Of course, when Valentine was discovered committing these horrible acts, he was put to death. This marks at least one of the three martyred Catholic saints name Valentine, or Valentinus.

Another legend suggests that Valentine sent the first "valentine" to a young girl, possibly his jailor's daughter, while imprisoned. Apparently this girl would visit him during his confinement, and before his death it is rumored that he wrote her a letter, signing it "From your Valentine."
There are other stories that suggest that Valentine, or at least one of them, was killed for trying to help Christians escape the Roman prisons where they were being tortured and beaten. However, that story is not nearly as romantic as the holiday suggests it should be, and is looked upon very lightly in most history. Whatever his story, given his image of a sympathetic, and most certainly romantic, hero, it is not hard to see how he became one of the most popular saints in England and France during the Middle Ages.

As with most holidays, the true origins are very clouded, and most often combined with other traditions, so it soon becomes impossible to decipher when and why we actually celebrate these days the way we do.
For instance, the very date of St. Valentine's Day, February 14th. Some believe that this date is celebrated as the anniversary of Valentine's death or burial, most likely occurring around 270 A.D. Where there are others that suggest that the Christian church chose to celebrate in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan celebrations of the Lupercalia festival.

For ancient Romans, February was the official start to spring, and was a time for purification. Like today's "spring cleaning", houses were ritually swept clean and sprinkled with salt and spelt, a type of wheat. February 15th, the "ides of February," began Lupercalia, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, and to the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. The festivities began when members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would assemble at the sacred cave where it was believed that Romulus and Remus were raised by a lupa, or she-wolf. There they would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification.

Young men would then cut the goat's hide into strips, dip them in the sacrificial blood and go back to town. On their way and throughout the town they would gently slap the fields of crops and the women with these bloodied goat hide strips. To be slapped with a bloody goat hide was not feared, but welcomed by the Roman women. For being touched with the sacred strips was suggested to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day the city's bachelor's would draw names from a larger urn in the city center. The names were of all the young women, and these two would be paired for the year. Often times these pairings ended in marriage.
In, or around, 498 A.D. Pope Gelasius declared February 14th St. Valentine's Day and the Roman "lottery" for romantic pairing was deemed "un-Christian" and outlawed.

More currently, sometime in the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed throughout England and France that February 14th marked the beginning of the mating season for birds. Obviously, this added to the idea that mid February, or St. Valentine's Day, should be a day for romance.
In doing my research for this article I was surprised to not find any symbolizing of candy and flowers. However, the jail letters indicate the tradition of exchanging cards to mark the occasion. Which recent studies show that there are about 141 million Valentine's Day cards exchanged every year.

So I suggest being original, or getting back to the roots of the holiday. Why waste money on flowers, candy and jewelry? Confess your love with a goat hide (you might want to see how she feels about that first) or just send a card. I believe the rest of the modern traditions, fancy decorations, dinners and all the other gifts, are obviously a newer custom instilled by the retail markets to give us another reason to expect and to purchase gifts. But that's a different topic entirely!

I wish all of you a Happy Valentine's Day!