And, in a precursor to greeting cards, he handed out paper hearts to remind Christians of their love for God. Because of this legend, St. Valentine became known as the patron saint of love. The Saint Valentine prayer asks Saint Valentine to connect lovers together, so that two become one, and the couple remembers their devotion to God.
While the Saint Valentine story set the groundwork for establishing the day as a holiday for romantic love, what truly solidified the connection between Saint Valentine and love was a poem by medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer in , which historians consider the origin of the "modern" celebration of Valentine's Day, where we celebrate our romantic partnership with one other person.
Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, the era of courtly love, when broad, romantic statements of devotion—poems, songs, paintings—celebrated partnership. By the end of the 15th century, the word "valentine" was being used to describe a lover in poems and songs of the day, and in the 18th century, a book called The Young Man's Valentine Writer was published in England.
By the midth century, mass-produced paper Valentine's Cards were being created though Valentine card ideas are still worth trying , and Valentine's Day as we know it was born. The truth about Valentine's Day history is that the romantic holiday isn't immune to trauma. In Prohibition Chicago in , seven men were killed by a gang organized by Al Capone on February The Valentine's Day Massacre became a flashpoint in Prohibition history, with police and lawmakers going after the gangs and mobs that had formed in cities to control then-illegal substances like alcohol.
To enjoy Newsround at its best you will need to have JavaScript turned on. If you cannot see the interactive activity on this page, click here.
Having a particular Valentine's Day is a very old tradition, thought to have originated from a Roman festival. The Romans had a festival called Lupercalia in the middle of February - officially the start of their springtime. It's thought that as part of the celebrations, boys drew names of girls from a box. They'd be boyfriend and girlfriend during the festival and sometimes they'd get married. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa.
The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. These matches often ended in marriage. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love.
The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.
The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois. Accounts of his birth vary; some say he is the son of Nyx and Erebus; others, of Aphrodite and Ares; still others suggest he is the son of Iris and Zephyrus or even Aphrodite and Zeus who would have been both his father and grandfather.
According to the Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome immortal played with the emotions of Gods and men, using golden arrows to incite love and leaden ones to sow aversion. By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology.
Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early s. Valentine was executed on 14 February in the year It wasn't until more than years later that 14 February was proclaimed St Valentine's Day. By this time Rome had become Christian and the Catholic Church was determined to stamp out any remaining paganism. A pagan fertility ritual was held in February each year and the Pope abolished this festival and proclaimed 14 February Saint Valentine's Day, thus establishing this feast day on the Catholic Calendar of Saints.
This was the beginning of the tradition of courtly love, a ritual of expressing love and admiration, usually in secret. This custom spread throughout Europe and stories grew about a High Court of Love where female judges would rule on issues related to love on 14 February each year. Historians believe that these meetings were in fact gatherings where people read love poetry and played games of flirtation. The practice of sending love messages developed into people sending special cards expressing their affection.
These cards were beautiful creations handmade by the sender and individually designed to show how much they loved the recipient.
0コメント