Every year in Valentine's Day We celebrate love by giving chocolates and red roses, and by sending cards to our loved ones.
The traditions we participate in have evolved over the centuries, but the date has always remained the same.
This holiday of love has much more ancient roots than you might think, and is shrouded in mystery!
We all know that Valentine's Day — it's a day of love and camaraderie, but why do we celebrate love in February?
Who was Saint Valentine?
There are many stories of martyrs and saints named Valentine, mostly between 269 and 273 AD in Rome.
However, they all generally follow the same path, so it is difficult for historians to say whether it was one person or several.
Two stories are particularly compelling and almost identical. One concerns a Roman priest, the other the Bishop of Terni.
They were both imprisoned in a nobleman's house for conducting secret weddings and were then executed on February 14.
The main difference between them is in the miracles, since the Bishop of Terni did not perform any.
A Roman priest befriended a nobleman's blind daughter while he was imprisoned and cured her of her blindness. Before his execution, he left her a note signed "Your Valentine.".
Because of the mythical nature of the stories, it is difficult to know whether they are all about the same person or whether these people even existed.
Like most Christian literature, this event was written down long after it was said to have occurred.
Why do we celebrate Valentine's Day at all and why on the fourteenth?
Long before Valentine's Day became a romantic holiday, it was a Christian holiday.
This solemn holiday was dedicated to the martyrs who died on February 14. The first such celebration of Valentine's Day was held by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD.
Nearly a thousand years later, in 1382, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem called "The Parliament of Fowls." This poem is the first recorded instance of the romantic nature of Valentine's Day.
In his poem, Chaucer wrote, "It was on St. Valentine's Day, When every bird comes hither to choose his mate," referring to the spring when birds in England begin to mate.
Shortly thereafter, in 1400, at Mantes-la-Jolie, Charles VI of France wrote the Charter of the Court of Love.
The charter stated that an annual festival would be held, poetry and music would be performed, and women would settle love disputes at the royal court.
Since then, writers like Shakespeare wrote about Valentine's Day in connection with love and romance, and people began to celebrate February 14th as the day of love.
Their works are mainly dedicated to the mating season in spring - especially romantic time for animals of all kinds.
Was Valentine's Day a reimagined pagan holiday?
Long before the Feast of St. Valentine began in Rome, the Romans celebrated another holiday, Lupercalia, which fell between February 13 and 15. .
Some historians claim that Pope Gelasius I created the feast of St. Valentine to replace this day, although not everyone agrees.
Lupercalia was a fertility festival in honor of Pan and Juno, the pagan gods of love, marriage, and fertility. The festival began with the sacrifice of a goat by priests called luperks .
The goat skin was then cut into strips and Luperci They beat women with them, supposedly to help them become more fertile. But it wasn't at all cruel, and the women seemed to welcome the whips.
Although Pope Gelasius I banned the holiday and introduced the celebration of Valentine's Day around the same time, there is no other evidence that Valentine's Day replaced it.
So, Valentine's Day can simply be celebrated on February 14th to prevent pagans from honoring their gods!
What do Cupid and red roses have to do with Valentine's Day?
In Greek mythology, there are two stories about the origin of the red rose. One says that the red rose was created when the goddess Aphrodite scratched herself on a white rose, turning it red.
In a more romantic story, Adonis, Aphrodite's lover, is wounded by a boar while hunting.
While he was wounded and bleeding, Aphrodite began to cry, and from the mixture of her tears and his blood, red roses grew.
Although Cupid is a Roman deity, he was originally a Greek deity named Eros. In early Greek mythology, Eros is depicted in his late teens, very handsome and masculine.
He is also said to be more powerful than any of the gods, as he can make anyone fall in love.
Eventually, Eros began to seem too powerful, and stories about Eros began to focus more on him following his mother's will.
By the time the Romans captured Eros and turned him into Cupid, he was already a harmless little boy.
During the Renaissance, artists like Caravaggio were obsessed with these symbols of love. Later, greeting card companies like Hallmark followed suit, and the symbolism persists to this day.
- Whether you're still in love with your high school sweetheart or have been married to the love of your life for years, Valentine's Day is an important day.
- The most religious among us will celebrate the sacrifice of the saint who wanted to marry couples, even though it put him at great risk.
- Saint Valentine was unfortunately executed on the 14th, and that's the real reason we celebrate Valentine's Day on this day!
- No matter how you spend this day, one thing is for sure: on February 14th, birds in the Northern Hemisphere will start singing to each other, and poets will find it very romantic!