What is the history of Valentines Day?
Valentine’s day is actually known as St. Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day started in Ancient Rome. February 14th was to honor Juno, the queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses (also known as the Goddess of women and marriage). The 15th of February is the Feast of Lupercalia.
Claudius II (Claudius the Cruel) cancelled marriages and engagements in Rome in order to get men to enlist in his army. Saint Valentine was a priest in Rome during the time of Claudius the Cruel. With the help of Saint Marius, Saint Valentine aided Christian martyrs and secretly married couples. Unfortunately Saint Valentine was dragged before the Prefect of Rome and was beaten to death with clubs and got be-headed. This happened on February 14th, 270 AD. This developed into a pagan feast and ceremony where women’s names were placed in a box from where men drew them.
The pagan feasts were replaced by saints’ names and it represented a time of feasting and love.
One legend contends that 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 — his crop of potential soldiers. 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. Another is this one, which I believe is the most commonly believed origin of the holiday we now know as not much more than cards, candy and flowers…. Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial — which probably occurred around 270 A.D — others claim that the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to ‘christianize’ celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancie
Originally, St. Valentine was just another saint, not a particularly well-recognized one. I think he was martyred because he performed Christian weddings between young couples when the local pagan government didn’t want him to, or something like that. Valentine only got a big holiday because there was a Roman fertility festival in mid-February where teenagers would randomly select a “partner” for the year. They got to do whatever they liked with each other. Naturally, the local Christian missionaries objected to this and pulled out St. Valentine as a symbol of more wholesome love. Robbed of their fooling-around buddy system, the Roman kids couldn’t do anything more than send little written notes of affection. Real Valentine’s Day cards didn’t turn up until way later, though.
Valentine’s Day originated in the 3rd century. St. Valentine was a priest in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. The Emperor was having trouble recruiting members for his army because the men did not want to leave their wives and children for the long military expeditions. Some of these expeditions would last for months and even years. Emperor Claudius then decided that banning marriages in Rome would solve “his” problem. The Emperor Claudius had St. Valentine sentenced to death for defying his order and marrying couples in secret! As St. Valentine awaited execution, his admirers would come to the jail and leaving notes of support and flowers. As luck would have it, his most ardent admirer turned out to be the daughter of a prison guard. She would visit him for hours a day . On the day of his execution, February 14 in the year 269 AD, St. Valentine wrote her a note expressing his gratitude for her love, support, and friendship and signed it “Love from our Valentine”. As it tu
