VALENTINES CARDS

The origins of trading Valentines seems to have begun in Europe and the United States in the 18th century, but some legends attribute the exchange of affectionate greetings to St. Valentine himself. Valentine may have been the name of one or two martyred Christians: one is said to have been a priest and physician in Rome and the other a bishop in Terni, Italy. Both are said to have been executed on February 14 about the year 270 and could very well have been the same person. In any case, stories describe how Valentine was condemned to death for defying the emperor by secretly marrying couples to spare the husbands from war. Valentine, while in prison, allegedly befriended (or, in some versions of the story, fell in love with) his jailer’s daughter, whom he also miraculously cured of blindness. The night before his execution, he is said to have written her a farewell message and signed off with “Your Valentine.”

However fitting the tale of Valentine’s message may seem, it did not immediately initiate the tradition of sending Valentine’s Day greetings. Indeed, Valentine’s Day did not even become a holiday until the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius I purportedly needed a convenient holiday to replace the Roman festival of Lupercalia. Taking place in mid-February, Lupercalia was known for its excessive merriment and such distinctive fertility rituals as the lashing of women by men using the hides of sacrificed animals. Gelasius, perhaps in an effort to end such pagan festivities, inaugurated a feast day to commemorate Valentine on the saint’s execution date. February 14, however, was not yet observed as a day to celebrate love. Scholars believe it did not become such until nearly 1,000 years later, some asserting that Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem The Parlement of Foules, which he wrote in 1380–90, first connected the day with romance. The earliest letters between lovers referring to St. Valentine's Day began to appear soon after the poem’s publication in the 14th century.