Be My Valentine
Before there was a Saint Valentine to bring romance into the
equation, mid-February was an important date for lovers. From
400 years BC, the Romans held an annual lottery in the name of
their god Lupercus. The names of teenage women were put into a
box and drawn at random by adolescent men. The 'winners' were
legally paired for a year.
Meanwhile, the mad emperor Claudius banned marriage for young
men - he believed that single men made better soldiers.
A Christian bishop, Valentine, disagreed with his Emperor and
secretly performed marriage ceremonies until Claudius found out
and first imprisoned him, and finally had him clubbed, stoned
and beheaded on February 24th, 270.
While he was imprisoned, Valentine fell in love with the
daughter of his jailer and when he was taken to be executed, he
left her a note signed, 'From your Valentine.'
Taking Valentine's name in vain, the Church, in AD 496, decided
to finally abolish the annual pairing off lottery held in honor
of the god Lupercus and so decreed a small change in the rules:
>From then on, both the young men and the young women would pick
a name out of the hat, but instead of getting a year of
companionship (and often lust), they drew the name of a Saint
whose life they had to spend the next year emulating.
Must have been quite a disappointment for the hot- bloodied
young Romans!
They named the day after Saint Valentine whose involvement, 226
years after his death, was more to usurp the pagan god than to
signify love.
Thankfully, public memory was more powerful that political will
and Saint Valentine remained associated with lovers. Young Roman
men, deprived of their lottery, took instead to handing
hand-written notes to the women they admired on February 14th.
The tradition of the Valentine card was thus started over 1500
years ago!
The earliest known card that still exists is currently in the
British Museum. It was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his
wife. He was a prisoner in the Tower of London at the time and
so his feelings of love were probably more acute than most!
In the sixteenth century the Bishop of Geneva tried to reinstate
the annual Saint's names lottery, but his efforts were
short-lived. February 14th was by then too firmly associated
with lovers for the Church to successfully interfere.
In 1797 a British publisher, who would have done very well in
modern Internet times, published 'The Young Man's Valentine
Writer' which offered scores of suggestions of sentimental
verses for the creatively challenged.
The practice of sending cards anonymously began with the
Victorians, who secretly love anything of a racy nature, but
publicly needed to maintain a show of respectful purity. Hence,
the verses in the cards became more and more obscene, but the
authors remained hidden behind a respectful anonymity.
The first publisher of Valentine's cards in America, Esther
Holland charged up to $35 for each card. And this was in 1870!
Finally, kisses are written a xxx because in days of illiteracy,
your signature was a cross. To convey the effect of an oath,
people would draw their cross and kiss it - in the same way that
they would kiss the Bible. So the x and the kiss became one and
the same.
Have a lovely Valentine's day! X