Be My Valentine

Years before there existed a Saint Valentine to warm the heart and inject passion into the cold winter, mid-February was already an exciting time for Roman youths. As early as 400 years BCE, ancient Romans held a popular yearly competition as an act of worship to their god of shepherds, Lupercus. Teenage women had their names put into a box and then selected by chance alone by adolescent men. The 'winners' then found themselves legally joined for a year.

Six centuries later, the warlike emperor Claudius II put a stop to marriage for young men -- because he took it into his head that unattached men made better soldiers.

An early Christian priest, Valentine, disagreed with his Emperor and secretly performed marriage ceremonies until Claudius dicovered his disloyalty and locked him up, and eventually caused him to be martyred for his faith on February 24th, 270.

The story goes that while he was locked up, Valentine fell madly in love with his guard's daughter and when he was taken to be executed, he sent her a message signed, 'From your Valentine.'

Valentine's story provided a good excuse, and so, the by now established Christian Church, in AD 496, took the opportunity to finally abolish the hated pairing off lottery held in honor of Lupercus the pagan god and so changed the rules:

From then on, both the young men and the young women would randomly choose from the box, but now they wouldn't get the expected year of 'marriage' (or, indeed, the more earthy benefits that were implied), they would now receive the name of a Saint whose life they were obliged emulate over the coming twelve months.

Must have been quite a disappointment for the hot-bloodied young Romans!

The day of the new-style lottery was named after Saint Valentine whose selection, more than two centuries after his martyrdom, was intended more to displace the pagan god than from any honest reverence towards love.

As so often happens, public memory was more powerful than the latest political ideas -- especially when as unpopular as this and Saint Valentine's name remained synonymous with love and lovers. The young men of Rome, missing their traditional sweepstake, began instead handing notes to the girls they hoped to gain favor with on February 14th.

And so, our modern love of giving Valentines cards was was introduced over 1500 years ago!

The earliest known card that is still in existence is owned by the British Museum. It was sent by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife in 1415. He was held captive in the Tower of London at the time and so outpourings of love were probably more acute than most!

In the sixteenth century the Bishop of Geneva tried to reinstate the yearly Saint's name lottery, but his efforts were short-lived. February 14th was by then too firmly associated with lovers for the Church to successfully interfere.

At the end of the 18th century, in 1797 a British publisher, a man who would have done well in modern times, published a guidebook called 'The Young Man's Valentine Writer' which contained hundreds of ready made sentimental verses for young men with more passion than poetry in their souls.

Sending Valentines cards anonymously not surprisingly started in Victorian times. Those outwardly straight-laced folks secretly loved anything that hinted at being 'naughty', but publicly were obliged to display a veneer of respectful purity. Hence, the messages in Victorian cards became ruder and ruder, but the authors remained hidden behind a respectful anonymity.

The earliest known of Valentine's cards in the U.S., Esther Holland charged up to $35 for a single card. An enormous amount of money way back in 1870!

In case you are wondering, we still write kisses with the letter 'x' because back when reading and writing was a rare skill, a person would 'sign' their name with their mark -- a cross. So that the mark would carry weight, people would draw their cross and kiss it -- much the same as they would kiss the Holy Bible. So the written 'x' became a written substitute for a kiss.

May you have a romantic Valentine's day! X