History of Valentine’s Day, why is it celebrated? –

doWhat are the origins of the Valentine tradition? ¿Do you question some time? Many scholars have also done so, but have not been able to come up with a clear answer. The history of Valentine’s Day is an uncertain story, full of mysteries and contradictions, even legends, so we now try to give you an answer in this post dedicated to history of valentinewhy is it celebrated?.

In the ancient martyrologies, three saints called valentine they are listed as dead on February 14. One of them, the least popular, was martyred in the Roman province of Africa. The remaining two were priests, one in Rome and another in Terni; both were buried in the Via Flaminiaand some researchers think that both were actually the same person.

The original legend of Valentine

The Golden Legenda famous compilation of hagiographies dating from the 13th century, makes mention of Valentine’s Day as a Roman priest who was executed for professing the Christian faith. According to this story, the night before he was executed, valentine worked a miracle, restablishing the sight of the jailer’s blind daughter.

In an effort to legitimize the Valentine’s Day as a special date for lovers (usually for commercial purposes), modern versions of the legend have spread.

One of them narrates that Emperor Claudius II had prohibited marriages between young peopleconsidering that it made them worse soldiers, and that valentine he had been convicted of ignoring the ban, officiating clandestine marriages.

Another, that on the eve of his martyrdom he fell in love with the jailer’s daughter, and that night he sent her what was the first ‘card of Valentine’s Day’.

The Christian version of Valentine

A theory, quite popularly accepted, says that the Pope Gelasius I linked the Valentine’s Day with romance in an attempt to Christianize ancient pagan fertility festivals.

The festivities had to do with the Lupercalia, a festival of the ancient Roman empire in which Lupercus, the pastoral god of the Italians, was honoredsomething caused the Church to want to put an end to it through the myth of Valentine.

According to legend, twin children Remus and Romulus, had been abandoned by their uncle on the Palatine Hillwhich is part of one of the seven hills of Rome.

The Twins they were picked up by a recently calved she-wolf, who supposedly nursed them and raised them in a cave. Growing up, the twins ended up founding Rome, the current seat of the Catholic Church.

It is therefore in Rome it was celebrated on February 14 in honor of the she-wolf who had saved its founders, and the festivities of the Lupercalia were celebrated in which women were flogged so that they could be fertile.

On the other hand there was a clear debauchery of men and women so that the Church chose to eliminate these holidays, adding to February 14 the celebration of Valentine’s Day, a priest who had been martyred by the Roman emperor, Claudius the Cruel, in 270 AD.

Thus in the year 496, Gelasius I he abolished these festivities. But from the relationship between Valentine’s Day and romantic love, there is no allusion except from the work of Geoffrey Chaucerin the fourteenth century.

The first allusion to Valentine

In his poem “The Parliament of the Birds”, Chaucer establishes an analogy between the courtship of birds and that of men, and refers to the Valentine’s Day as a natural date for these occasions.

This has raised suspicions, since definitely, February 14 is not mating season for birds (at least in the northern hemisphere). One possible explanation is that Chaucer he was referring to another valentine.

“The Parliament of the Birds” was composed to celebrate the commitment between Richard II of England Y Anne of Luxembourg. This commitment occurred on May 2, the date on which the day of the Valentine’s Day from Genoa.

So, is Valentine’s Day actually in early May?

The truth is that probably the tradition of Valentine’s Dayas we know it today, is another modern invention, although the first signs of the celebration as we know it today already appeared in the Middle Ages.

The origin of Valentine in the Middle Ages

Thus, and taking the legend of the priest Valentin who married couples of young lovers, the celebration begins in the Middle Ages and throughout much of Europe, every February 14, of a day dedicated to love.

medieval valentine

In this way, on the date indicated, loving exchanges were celebrated between people who were not really a couple, or did not have a love relationship.

Back then, it created an exchange of cards with messages that said things like: “I want you to be my love.”

Together with these cards, they used to send boxes with chocolate candies, since according to what was believed at that time, chocolate was a stimulant of sexual passions.

The celebration was something that spread in a very popular way, not only among the upper social classes, but also among the lower or poor classes.

In reality, the day served for people, single or married, to celebrate for a day having the freedom to carry out their sexual fantasies with the person they admired the most, without offending the supposed principles of morality of the time.

Valentine’s day today

And today, Valentine’s Day has become a holiday that was officially established in the Catholic calendar in 1969, as a reminder of the saint.

It is also understood as a day in which love is celebrated, but by the people we have next to us (couples) or those with whom we are in love, without the meaning that they gave it in the middle ages.

It is tradition to send cards and chocolates, but gifts of all kinds are also given, which is why many see the party as a consumerist act rather than a romantic one.

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