Valentine’s Day is here. Time for flowers, candy, send cards to celebrate the day traditionally set aside for love. But was Valentine's Day celebrated in the Middle Ages? Sort of.
When did that tradition start?
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| St. Valentine of Terni and his disciples |
I wish I could give you a summarized, sanitized, glamourized
answer, but I love accuracy too much to do so. The answer is—unclear.
Tradition says the day was named for Valentine, an early
Christian priest martyred (this is true) for his part in—and that’s where the
story become murky. The church records three Valentines, all living around the
third century during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. One priest Valentine was
martyred in Africa. He’s not so much connected with our tale. That leaves
Valentine, a priest in Rome, and Valentine, Bishop of Terni.
One story says a priest named Valentine helped Christians escape
Roman persecution. Still a another story
says a priest named Valentine secretly married Roman couples to escape
Claudius’s edict banning marriage for soldiers (they were better military men if
they didn’t worry about wives and children, the emperor thought. However, one
historian says this edict never existed.)
One of these two Valentines, while imprisoned, is said to
have 1.) cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness and/or 2.) fallen in love
with her. Whatever the reason, he is said to have written her a letter on the
eve on his execution, signing it “your valentine.”
Both Valentines are said to have been martyred on Feb. 14
(different years). Since the church usually celebrated a saint’s birth or
death, that date became common.
Some reports link Valentine’s Day to a Roman festival of
Lupercalia—held Feb. 13-15. At that time, pagan priests would soak skins in the
blood of a sacrificed goat (symbol of fertility) and with it slap women (and fields)
to encourage fertility. Then men would draw women’s names from a bowl for their
mate during the following year.
Did an early pope, hoping to link Christian holidays to
pagan ones thus encouraging the spread of Christian belief, declare celebration
of St. Valentine’s Day coincide with that pagan festival? Some sources say so.
Ironically, other sources are vehement that it Wasn’t So. J
(It does make a good story, though.)
This post is on Medieval Valentines, and this all happened in the 4th
Century, the early days of the Church. How, then, did Valentine’s Day become
commonly accepted ? Was it also linked to early spring mating of birds, a
belief popular in many rural areas?Jack B. Oruch says the links of romantic love and Valentine’s Day was first recorded in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules (1382). The poem celebrated Richard II and Anne of Bohemia’s engagement contract in 1381. (They were married at 15.)
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| Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve (1412) |
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
(Trans:"For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.")”
The first actual recorded ‘Valentine’ (that has been found, at least) is attributed to Charles, Duke of Orleans, who wrote it to his wife about 1416 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of England after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. Here is the first couple of verses of it:
French
(Original)
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English
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Je
suis déjà d’amour tanné, Ma très douce
Valentinée, Car pour moi fûtes trop tard née, Et moi
pour vous fus trop tôt né. Dieu lui
pardonne qui estrené M’a de vous,
pour toute l’année
Je
suis déjà, etc. Ma très douce, etc. Bien m’étais suspeçonné, Qu’aurais
telle destinée, Ainsi que passât
ceste journée, Combien
qu’Amours l’eût ordonné.
Je
suis déjà, etc.
|
I
am already sick of love, My very
gentle Valentine, Since for me you were born too soon, And I for
you was born too late. God
forgives he who has estranged Me from you
for the whole year.
I
am already, etc. My
very gentle, etc. Well
might I have suspected, Having such a destiny, cousin Thus would have
happened this day, How
much that Love would have commanded.
I
am already, etc (“French
Poems”)
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As for valentines in English, the earliest discovered (so far) can be found in Margaret Brewes letters to her future husband, John Paston, “my right well-beloved valentine.” They are part of the Paston Letters collection. A link to the entire letter is below.
Well, there you have it. We can’t really be sure exactly for which Valentine the day was named, or even how the romantic element of it persisted and grew over a thousand years, from the time of the Sts. Valentine martyrdoms, to Chaucer’s mention of the day in a romantic context in 1382, to the Duc d’Orleans’ Valentine to his wife and a 15th Century lady to her betrothed.
Perhaps it just goes to show the enduring need to celebrate the feeling that binds us romantically to another.
But you know, the idea of romantic love goes even further back—to Greek mythology—to that arrow-wielding god Cupid and his mortal lady, Psyche, and a love that transcended time. But that’s another story J
Sources:http://www.americancatholic.org/features/valentinesday/origins/asp http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/paston.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/642175.stm for full text of the Brewes letter. http://www.anglophone-direct.com/FRENCH-POEMS-FOR-VALENTINE-S-DAY http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day http://www.history.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day (I know. I’m sorry. But it has good sourcing.)
The photos are from Wikipedia. The card is from funforfun.com free Valentine's cards.
And if you'd like to read some later Medieval love poems, go here: http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com/2011/10/medieval-love-poem-fortunes-wheel.html
(The above was adapted from a previous post.)