Thursday, February 28, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Valentine's Day
February has long been celebrated as a month
of romance, and is like a mystery.. Valentine's Day, as we know it today,
contains a traces of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.
Saint
Valentine is recognized in the
Catholic Church with at least three different saints named Valentine or
Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. Valentine was a priest who served during the
third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made
better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for
young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius
and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine's
actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.
While some believe that Valentine's Day is
celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of
Valentine's death or burial--which probably occurred around A.D. 270--others claim
that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine's feast day
in the middle of February in an effort to "Christianize" the pagan
celebration of Lupercalia.
Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the
Roman God of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”--at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”--at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds' mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine's Day should be a day for romance.
Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written Valentine's didn't begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.
Valentine's Day Greetings In the United States Valentine's Day began to
be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th, it
was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small
tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by 1900 printed cards began to
replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Ready-made
cards were an easy way for people to express their emotions in a time when
direct expression of one's feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also
contributed to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine's Day
greetings.
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