History Of Valentines Day
The history of Valentine’s Day is packed with mystery and controversy. Although it was commonly believed that it was named after three Early Christian martyrs, all three were named Valentine, there has never been real and concrete evidence to prove this to be true. Consequently, the same Catholic Church that originally promoted and officially celebrated eleven Valentine’s Days has removed it off the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints in later years, during the 1969 revision and creation of the Vatican II calendar. However, Valentine’s Day continued to be celebrated according to the Traditional Catholic, the pre-Vatican II calendar throughout the world.
There are beliefs stemming from vague sources that associate miscellaneous Graeco-Roman holidays with commemorations of and tributes to marriage, fertility and love during the month of February. In Addition, similar beliefs link Valentine’s Day with romantic love sometime during the High Middle Ages. However, the first credible and written record that tied Valentine’s Day to romantic love was uncovered by Thomas Hoccleve in 1412 in the writing of Geoffrey Chaucer (an English poet) who wrote his poem in honor of the first anniversary of King Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia in 1382. They, by the way, were married when he was thirteen and she was fourteen.
In the American culture, Saint Valentine’s Day was restored in the 1840s, became favorably recognized as a national holiday and has been flourishing extravagantly ever since while the Early Christian martyrs named Valentine have been long forgotten.
Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated annually on the fourteenth of February. Traditionally, Valentine’s Day is a day in which lovers express their deep and mutual feeling for one another by exchanging handwritten Valentine notes that evolved into mass produced and commercialized Valentine’s Day cards by the nineteenth century. Statistics show that Saint Valentine’s Day has become the largest card-sending holiday in the United States. In addition to cards, lovers present each other with love poetry and songs, send or bestow sensual and romantic gifts as well as flowers.
The first commercially and mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards were designed on embossed paper lace created by Esther Howland in 1847 in Worcester, Massachusetts. As a tribute to her, beginning with 2001, the American Greeting Card Association annually presents the Esther Howard Award of a Greeting Card Visionary.
In the United States in the late 1900s, the one hundred year old custom of exchanging cards among lovers was expanded to include various gifts such as chocolates and candies and then the diamond and jewelry industries began heavily promoting Saint Valentine’s Day as the perfect occasion for giving their wares. In a similar fashion, the Saint Valentine’s tradition has expended to include platonic friends of both genders, fellow students and teachers, co-workers and employers, family members on all levels (parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts and uncles and cousins), neighbors and even casual acquaintances.
As a way of teaching and reinforcing social and communication skills among elementary school children, teachers have been encouraging the children to prepare platonic Valentine’s Day cards to be distributed among their fellow students and to take home to their families. The children are asked to mention what they like about each other and express their appreciation within these cards.
The modern day symbols of Valentine’s Day are heart shapes which are signs of love and deep emotions, doves which stand for peace and serenity, lovebirds which are known to favor huddling close together and Cupids which are images of the god of erotic love and sex in Roman mythology and is often depicted with a bow and arrow that is purported to inspire romantic love and sex.
May the Cupid’s arrow pierce you with love forever more.
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