Valentine’s Day is approaching and surely we all go out to buy gifts that we can give to our lovers, but do we know why? Below we explain everything about this tradition and how it came about. This is the post dedicated to Valentine’s Day, the tradition.
Valentine’s Day is celebrated in various parts of the world, although not all the celebrations coincide in the date or the way of celebrating them.
Celebrating Valentine’s Day around the world
In different countries we can find how this day varies, so in Colombia for example it is called the day of love and friendship, celebrate in september and the gifts have a mysterious nature,
And so we need to talk about how to hold on China instead celebrate the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar.
Or in Japan Are the women who give to their boyfriends, friends and family.
Valentine’s celebration in Spain
Talking about Spain many believe that it is an invention of the 20th century to activate trade, although others still believe that it is very good to have a day like this to express our love for someone in a special way.
In fact, if we look at the tradition and origin, we can realize that there really is a story for the “legend” of Valentine.
In Spain perhaps knows that of the clergyman who married couples in love, but you have to know that about the origin and tradition of this saint, see other versions.
Valentine traditions
As I say, there are several theories about the beginning of the tradition. So it will be good if we go over them a bit.
The origin of Saint Valentine according to the poet Geoffrey Chaucer
Among the theories of Valentine’s Day, there is the one that refers to how Saint Valentine was already mentioned in 1382 by a poet named Geoffrey Chaucer.
Said poet was very given to writing all kinds of stories and specifically, he explained one through a poem that ended up being understood by many, during the fourteenth century, as the origin of Saint Valentine.
In 1375 Chaucer writes the poem “The Parliament of Foules” (The Parliament of Birds). In this poem, he explains how every February 14 birds (and humans) come together to find a mate.
Before the poem itself (which you can see in the form of an image above), there was no tradition of celebrating love on Valentine’s Day, so many consider it one of the reasons why this day began to be celebrated.
The tradition of Valentine according to a pagan holiday
On the other hand, it is believed that he had his beginnings in the pagan festival Lupercaliawhich later was adopted by Christianity.
On the festival, dedicated to the moon and fertility, women were flogged in order to have good conceptions when it came to having their children.
The custom was considered something to be prohibited by the church, so the church borrowed it and turned it into a celebration in which to actually celebrate love.
The Christian church would have adopted this custom in the year 494 after Christ coinciding on February 14.
For this reason, this date was chosen to be Valentine’s because it also coincided with the fact that in 240 it was the day of death of a martyr named Valentine.
The legend of the martyr Valentine
The legend says that Valentine was a Christian who disobeyed the order of Emperor Claudius III to worship 12 gods.
For this reason Valentine he was imprisoned. During his captivity he gave lessons in Roman history, arithmetic, science and he preached God to his jailer’s daughter who was blind.
The girl becomes a believer and regain sight. One day before being executed, Valentín wrote a letter to the girl urging her to keep her faith, and he signed it: of your Valentine”. This phrase lasted through the years and took on the meaning it has for us today.
valentine it was buried in what is now the Church of Práxedes.
The tradition of the priest Valentine
Another legend instead refers to Saint Valentine as a priest who actually disobeyed Claudius III’s order to marry off young couples.
In the year 269, Claudius III had decreed that young people could not marry since if they did, they performed less on the battlefield.
This is why the Saint Valentine Priest decided to skip his order and start secretly marrying young couples in love.
Claudius III heard the story of Valentine and how he had married couples all over Rome, so he orders his capture.
Valentin speaks with Claudio III and although it seemed that he had convinced him and converted him to Christianity, he finally ends up being captured and imprisoned.
While in prison he died as a martyr on February 14, day that until 1965 was a day of Christian celebration, to later become a pagan celebration.
Cupid’s lore
Finally, we can talk about how prior to Christianization, the Roman religion was polytheistic so that several gods were worshipped.
One of them was Cupid, a pagan god who represented thoughtless love in relation to attraction and therefore was always represented as if he were a small child.
According to legend, Cupid was still a capricious God who he amused himself by aiming at men and women with his arrows.
With this, he was able toSatisfy your wicked needs for fun, and he liked to control people dominating their passions and basic instincts and of course, love.
For this reason, Cupid has always been associated with the world of love and passionate relationships.
Despite this, we do not have any Cupid-related holidays that set the date for February 14th.
Also, neither do we find a relationship between Cupid and Valentine.
Valentine’s Tradition Video
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