No one really knows how Saint Valentine’s day come about, so here’s a few theories.
One for the romantics:
Valentine was a Roman Christian, who was persecuted for performing secret marriages against direct orders from Emperor Claudius II, who believed unmarried soldiers were more likely to join his army. He was flung into jail and condemmed to die, and while in jail, fell in love with the jailor’s daughter who happened to be blind. With nothing but the power of his faith he cured her blindness and just before his death he allegedly sent her a love letter, signed ‘your Valentine’. And then he died and was sainted sometime later. So that’s why we send Valentine’s cards to people we love.
And a not so romantic one:
There has been a celebration on the 14th February since the fifth century AD, but previously it had more to do with fertility than romance. The Roman celebration of Lupercalia was a ritual to the god Lupercus, to keep the wolves lupi at bay. In Rome, two priests (or two high-born young men depending on the source) of this cult, luperci would travel to the lupercal, the cave where the she-wolf who reared Romulus and Remus* allegedly lived. Similar rituals held in other parts of the Roman Empire had to use venues symbolic of the cave. The two priests/ high-born young men stripped naked and sacrificed a dog and a goat. They smeared blood on their foreheads, then wiped it off with wool dipped in milk. A great feast was then held and then each man lead a group of near-naked men around the hills of Rome. Women would line up to be whipped by the passing men with strips of goat skin in the belief that it would encourage fertility.
*Twin sons of Mars and Rhea Silvia, Remus came to a sticky end at the hand of Romulus, and Romulus went on to found Rome.
A precursor to the 1970s key party?
Another theory was that Lupercalia honoured Juno, queen of the Roman gods and goddesses, and goddess of women and marriage. Women would write love letters, and leave them in a large urn. The men of Rome would then draw a note from the urn and ardently pursue the woman who wrote the message they had randomly picked.
As know one really knows, you can choose you favourite theory or just make up your own.
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