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This Day Might Inflame: Valentine Customs Through the Ages
| Article
# : |
11710 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1994 |
3,287 Words |
| Author
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Peggy Robbins
Peggy Robbins, a Tennessee native, is a free-lance writer
living in Gulfport, Mississippi. Over the past three decades,
she has written extensively about American heritage and
military history. |
More legends and customs are associated with the origin of Valentine's Day than any other widely observed celebration. Although most agree that it was named after a saint noted for settling lovers' quarrels, the question remains, Which Saint Valentine? Early lists of Christian martyrs include eight of them. Two of the most prominent were beheaded by Emperor Claudius II during the third century for giving aid and comfort to Christians. While in prison, one of the Valentines is said to have "brought sight" to the jailer's blind daughter, fallen in love with her, and, just before being beheaded, written her a farewell letter signed "From your Valentine."
It seems probable that tales of several Saint Valentines merged to create the legendary patron saint of lovers. Another theory, the belief that the word valentine came from the Norman galatin, meaning gallant or lover of women, enriched the romance of Valentine's Day. (According to etymologists, the letters v and g were once used interchangeably)
The first known printed representation of Saint Valentine is in The Nuremberg Chronicle. Among the hundreds of woodcuts in this fifteenth-century picture book is one depicting Valentinus, the Saint Valentine who loved the jailer's daughter. He was beheaded on February 14 in the year 270.
Over the centuries, as Christianity established itself in Europe, wise priests, rather than forbidding pagan festivals, refined them into Christian celebrations. The ancient custom of maidens and young men drawing names to select partners for celebrations was retained and became popular in England. Heart-shaped epistles of greeting, many declaring undying love, were in use in England in the fourteenth century, and, in the next century, many English poets began writing valentine verses. John Lydgate, a noted English poet who died in 1450, spoke sentimentally of the "Custome of Seynte Valentine" as a rewarding "religioun."
Charles Duc d'Orleans was one of the earliest creators of "poetical amorous address," or valentines. After the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, in which Henry V of England was victorious over the French, Charles was confined in the Tower of London; from there he sent rhymed love letters to his wife.
Birds, booklets, and boiled eggs
In the Middle Ages it was believed throughout Europe that February 14 was the mating day for birds. For example, English poet
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