With Valentine’s Day coming up, there are a lot of feelings in the air. Many people hate Valentine’s Day, or as some call it, Singles Awareness Day. Others look forward to it as the next big holiday after Christmas, and enjoy all the cheesiness and commercialization that goes along with the season. Thinking about what my own Valentine’s Day is going to be like this year, I became curious as to what the true origin of the holiday is, and how it made the transition from a saint’s holiday to the somewhat tacky celebration it is today.
Dating back to about 270 A.D. during the Roman Empire, St. Valentine, whom the holiday is named after, was a Christian martyr. According to the historical legend, he helped minister to early Christians at a time when the church was under much persecution. He also conducted marriage ceremonies for soldiers who were forbidden to have them. Because of these acts that he committed, St. Valentine was imprisoned by the Roman emperor at the time, tortured and eventually put to death.
The term “valentine” that we use to refer to the heart shaped cards that we send to one another on Valentine’s Day is supposed to have come from St. Valentine writing a card to the daughter of his jailer, Asterius, whom he had healed during his imprisonment. It is said the card was written the night before his appointed day of execution, and was signed “from your Valentine.” After his death, Julia is said to have planted a pink almond tree by his grave, as a symbol of love and friendship. As time went on over the following several centuries, the day was just a celebration of another saint’s life among the rest of the honored saints in the church.
In the Middle Ages, Geoffrey Chaucer is attributed with having written the very first poem that dealt with Valentine’s Day. At that time, in the high royal court of the day, courtly love, along with courtly music and literature about love, was very popular. It is assumed that this tradition helped the holiday evolve into the celebration of love that it is today. Lovers in this medieval time also wrote and sent valentines to one another, along with different delicious confections. This continued throughout the following years.
In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Ophelia mentions Valentine’s Day, saying how she wishes to be Hamlet’s valentine. Even the oft quoted poem which we all wrote silly versions of in elementary school, “roses are red, violets are blue,” has a medieval connection. In Edmund Spenser’s medieval epic poem, “The Faerie Queene,” Spenser writes of the fairy queen that “bath’d with roses red, and violets blew, And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.” And so the practice of sending valentines to one another grew to the modern holiday greeting cards that we see in stores today.
No matter what your feelings on Valentine’s Day may be, at least appreciate the history behind the day and that St. Valentine was a real person who performed many good acts. Realize that although Valentine’s Day is based on commercial and consumerism, it does represent a day steeped with history.Shameless Plug of the Week: A lot of people decry it as a silly made-up holiday, but there’s nothing wrong with celebrating your love for someone else. For those singles out there, declare your love for the other people in your life. Call your parents and tell them how much you love them, sing into the phone to your pet at home, or even just get together with other friends to watch a movie. If you don’t want to make any of those things happen, you can always love on yourself, and eat some candy yourself. That way, no sharing. Happy Valentine’s day, y’all.
— Hunter Tipton is a senior in microbiology. He can be reached at [email protected].
