February 14th is traditionally celebrated as St Valentines Day or more simply, Valentines Day.  It is the day that lovers express their love for each other sending cards and gifts.  It is also a day that people can send their love tokens anonymously.

 

Historically there are two Saints named Valentine who were listed as being martyred on February 14th.  As with many of the Saints, there is very little actual and accurate historical information upon which a debate can be structured.  The two Valentines were; Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni.

 

o        Valentine of Rome who was a priest doctor who reputedly ministered to patients regardless of their ability to pay him.  Valentine of Rome was martyred around AD 270 and was bestowed with Sainthood have performed the miracle of restoring sight to a blind girl.

o        Valentine of Terni a bishop who was persecuted and killed around AD200 by Emperor Aurelin.

 

Valentine's Day today with its romantic connotations is widely held to be linked to Valentine of Rome although there is little understanding as to why Valentines is linked to lovers.  One explanation maybe that the name Valentine is derived from the Latin 'valor' meaning worthy, or that it maybe that it is liked to a different Valentine altogether.  The influential Valentinius of Alexandra ( c 100 – c 150) who taught that the marriage bed had a central and pivotal role in Christian love.  For this to be the catalyst for Valentine's Day we need a link to February.  This could be satisfied by February 13-14 being celebrated, in Rome, as the Juno Februa 'chaste Juno' where Juno was a Roman Goddess processed of great beauty.

 

Geoffrey Chaucer (English poet) is credited with having made the first link between Valentines day and love and romance in his work written to honour the anniversary of the engagement between Richard II and  Anne of Bohemia.

 

Celebration of Valentine's Day

 

The earliest tokens of affection were feathers, flowers and fern fronds.  It was around the sixteenth century that religious mementos featuring the sacred heart were introduced with the earliest of these being created in French, German and Dutch convents.   These religious 'devotionals' are the epitome of a love token being lovingly created and given with many being sold by the convent to aid charity.  These devotionals are widely recognised as being precursors to many of symbols associated with Valentines today – sacred hearts, love knots etc. 

 

Before this, there were no 'Valentines cards'.  Samuel Pepys, the diarist, records the giving of expensive items such as gloves, hosiery and jewelry as valentines' gifts and his diaries also mention little valentines' notes on blue paper.  These references are from the fifteenth century well before the convents produced the first parchment or vellum 'devotional' pieces.

 

With the advance of the industrial revolution, people had less time to spend making their own valentines and industrial processes were able to mass produce replacements by machine.  Not all Valentines produced were romantic; the advent of the industrial revolution gave rise to a different type of Valentine, the penny dreadful or vinegar valentine.  These were mass produced on cheap pulp paper and were often rude and vulgar.  

 

The demand s of WWI saw the production of valentines largely cease and they didn't rematerialize again, at least in mass volume, until the 1930's.  Valentines continued through WWII although they carried a much simpler and unfussy message like 'For my sweetheart in the Army'.  This simplicity continued through the periods of austerity after the war and it is perhaps only in the early 1970's that the renaissance of the 'romantic' imagery was reintroduced to valentines cards.

 

Today, it is estimated by the Greetings Card Association that approximately 1 billion cards are sent worldwide each February 14, which makes Valentines Day the second largest card-sending occasion in the calendar – the biggest remaining Christmas.  The GCA also estimates that nearly 85 percent of all of the cards purchased are bought by women.  This colossal volume of cards sold and the pressure marketing of Valentine's Day has earned it the tag of being a 'Hallmark holiday'.

 

Today, Valentines day is celebrated by the giving of cards and gifts or love tokens, special meals and also more recently at Valentines Parties.

 

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