It's become so easy in recent years to blow off most holidays as "Hallmark holidays," ones that only exist because greeting card and candy companies are trying to make money. Of course, some we know have older roots; Christmas and Easter, for example, have roots even more ancient than most would like to acknowledge.
Valentine's Day has never been a holiday that Thane and I have really celebrated. We're not the two most romantic souls in the world. I've always known that the holiday is really St. Valentine's Day and was in honor of a Christian saint, but didn't know anything more than that. This morning, I thought I'd take a few minutes to do a bit of research. I copied the following from Wikipedia (the font of all suspect knowledge):
Saint Valentine's Day, often simply Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. It is celebrated in countries around the world, mostly in the West, although it remains a working day in all of them.
The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").
Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting card.
A couple of things in that text surprised me. I didn't know that there were multiple Valentines being honored (Wikipedia does go on to give more information about a few). Mostly, though, I was surprised that the holiday was considered a romantic one starting so long ago. I guess if it's been around for 600 years we can't really blame it on Hallmark! It's odd, however, that there's no known connection to love, romantic or otherwise, in the lives or martyrdoms of any of the known Valeninuses.
I didn't learn anything in my reading that inspires me to suddenly start spouting odes to love, but maybe I will go buy Thane a box of chocolates. I'm pretty sure he'd share them with me!
