In Ancient Rome the 13-15 February was celebrated as a pagan festival of fertility with many customs including young men stripping naked and using goat- or dog-skin whips to spank the backsides of young women in order to improve their fertility! (I think we need to be grateful that some tradtions aren’t continued!)
The day is said to be named after a Christian martyr from around 200AD who had been arrested for secretly carrying out weddings when the Emperor had forbidden men to marry as they made better soldiers! Allegedly, he later sent his lover a note from prison ‘From your Valentine’ and was martyred on 14th February (although the date & note may have been added in later!).
Valentine’s Day became official in 496AD when the then Pope, Gelasius, declared 14 February to be a Christian feast day.
The first documented linking of Valentine’s Day and romantic love is by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382 however it is the French (no surprise there) who in 1400 opened the St Valentine’s Day court in Paris to deal with affairs of the heart and marriage contracts (it also dealt with infidelity, divorces and beaten spouses! – not so romantic)! Typically, it was a Frenchman, Charles, the Duke of Orleans, imprisoned in the Tower of London following capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, who is noted as writing the first recorded Valentine’s note to his love.
In 1601 William Shakespeare mentions Valentine’s Day in Ophelia’s lament in Hamlet:
‘To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.’
It was in the mid-eigtheenth century that the passing of love-notes (early Valentine’s day cards) becomes popular in England with early notes being made of lace and paper.
To give men a helping hand (somethings never change!) ‘The Young Man’s Valentine Writer’ was published in 1797, suggesting appropriate rhymes and messages. As postal services became more affordable the anonymous St Valentine’s Day card became possible and by the early 1800’s, they become so popular that factories start to mass-produce them.
Richard Cadbury produced the first heart shaped box of chocolates for Valentines Day in the late 1800’s – today it is estimated that around 35 million are bought each year!
Hallmark cards produced their first Valentine’s card in 1913 possibly seen as the start of the commercialisation of Valentine’s day! Today over 1 billion cards are sent worldwide for as well as the UK, Valentines Day is celebrated in France, Italy, Australia, Denmark, USA, Canada and Mexico
Red roses are associated with Valentine’s Day as they were said to be the favourite flower of Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love – over 200 million stems are sent during the Valentine period each year!
A noted date in the calendar for romance, the diamond industry capitalised on this in he mid 1980’s promoting Valentine’s Day as a time to give jewellery, leading now to over 200,000 marriage proposals each Valantines Day!
Thank goodness for that! However you spend your Valentines Day hope it’s with someone you love!
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