What are the celebration parties of the Lupercales? The festivals related in some way, or that in fact evolved to the celebration of Valentine’s Day or Valentine’s Day, let us then know what this festival celebrates, its origin and what rites it had.
We know the pagan origin of Christmas and its relationship to the Saturnalia and Vikings, but the truth is that there are many other traditions such as Valentine’s Day whose origins are located in the vestiges of time and in pagan rites of other civilizations, in this case the Roman.
What is celebrated in the Lupercales
The Lupercales are not currently a party or tradition that have been maintained as originally. In fact it was a pagan festival of the Ancient Rome in which unbridled sex was the great protagonist. Hence, Christianity ended up eradicating its celebration, adapting it to the current Valentine’s Day.
In reality, however, and contrary to what one might think a prioress, it was not just a party of lewdness and debauchery, but rather the lupercales represented the rite of fertilization,but they were also carried out to avoid evil spirits and purify the cityand giving way to health and the aforementioned fertility.
When are the Lupercales 2020
The Lupercal festivals were celebrated between February 13 and 15 and they were mainly celebrated by the shepherds. They included several rites that we will explain later, but we cannot say that they are celebrated as such today.
However, the Lupercalias somehow evolved into the celebration of Valentine’s Day that as you already know It is celebrated on February 14th.
Origin of Lupercales
Until the 5th century AD, the ancient pagan cult of the Lupercalias was widespread, but later it was supplanted by the Christian festival of Saint Valentine, protector of lovers and therefore patron saint of Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14.
But if we analyze the origins of the Lupercals, we discover that the ancient Romans, initially a people of peasants and shepherdsconsidered plants and animals very important for their communities, therefore they worshiped a whole series of rural deities who protected agriculture and herds among which was Fauno (from faveo, the favorable, the good), god of the countryside and forests and protector of the herds that graze in the fields and forests. Fauno loved to annoy men by entering their houses and that is why he was also called Incubus, the nightmare. To learn his prophecies, the ancient Romans, the devotees of him, went to the forest where their oracles lived. Here they sacrificed a sheep; then they fell asleep, lying on their fleece, waiting to receive answers from the god in a dream.
The Faunalia (parties in honor of Faun) were held outdoors on December 5 by herders and farmers. But as he protector of the flocks attacked by wolves, Faun was called Lupercus and in his honor on February 15, in Rome, the Lupercalias were created, established by Romulus and Remus. During these celebrations the Romans purified themselves in order to be able to worthily welcome the spring that brought abundant fruits. So, these ceremonies were intended to promote the fertility of the land, animals and man, approaching the beautiful spring season when nature awakens from the rigors of winter.
Although the tradition of the festivals was established like many other pagan festivals and rituals of Ancient Rome, the Lupercalias, which, as we have mentioned, praised fertility, they were replaced in 496 when Pope Gelasius I instituted the feast of Saint Valentine, who in all his works and throughout his life promulgated love, in Christian terms, to the neighbor. Thus, on February 14 (in which Santa Febronia was celebrated, lived at the beginning of the fourth century, in ancient Sibapolis) of each year, this festival is celebrated throughout the world, having been recognized as holy by both the Anglican Church and by the Catholic as well as the Orthodox. On the other hand, the proclamation of him as “patron of Lovers” is quite questionable as some give this title to a Roman priest, who suffered martyrdom in the same years as Valentinus.
According to other sources, the Lupercalia would derive from the cult of a feminine divinity: Juno Februata (or purified Juno), who was once invoked by women in case of fever or to ask for protection during pregnancy, especially at the critical moment of childbirth.
It is known that these celebrations continued to be practiced even after the advent and spread of Christianity. In Rome, for examplethe Lupercalia was still celebrated in the 5th century, despite the accusations and prohibitions of the clergy, understandably worried about the persistence of such pagan customs.
For this reason and precisely so that the ancient pre-Christian rites that were celebrated annually after the Ides of February could be definitively eradicated, Pope Gelasius I instituted the aforementioned new Christian festival dedicated to the martyrdom of Saint Valentine.
Lupercal Rituals
Among the most widespread Lupercal rituals, goats were sacrificed, accompanying the offering with prayers and special rites: the forehead of two young men was touched with a blade stained with the blood of the sacrificed victim. Then their bloodstained faces were wiped with a woolen cloth dipped in milk. At this point, as usual, the two young men were free and purified.
At the end of the sacrifice and the banquet, the priests, called Luperci, they cut and kept the skin of the sacrificed victims. In this point They traveled from Lupercal (the place of sacrifice on the Palatine Hill near the sacred cave where, according to legend, a she-wolf found and cared for Romulus and Remus) throughout Rome, dressed only in an apron obtained from the skin aforementioned. The priests they whipped with pieces of that skin married women wishing to purify themselves and expiateconvinced that flogging would bring happiness to their marriage.