Valentine

Valentine’s Day is celebrated each year on February 14th. The feast day of the Catholic Saint Valentine, February 14th has become known as a day to celebrate love. On Valentine’s Day, people give cards and gifts to romantic partners and others they love. Cards exchanged on Valentine’s Day have come to be known simply as “valentines”. It is estimated that close to one billion valentines are sent worldwide each year! In the Middle Ages, a tradition of “courtly love” inspired Valentine’s Day. The idea behind courtly love was for the man to “court” his romantic interest. In other words, he did his best to be worthy of her love. Some of the ways for a man to court a woman would include giving her gifts and trying his best to act like a gentleman around her. There were many men named Valentine in the Middle Ages and a number of Saint Valentines as well. The Saint Valentine honored on Valentine’s Day may be more of a legend than an actual person. However, there were two men named Valentine who are saints. A feast day honoring them is on February 14th in the Catholic calendar. One Saint Valentine was bishop in Rome and the other was a bishop in the Italian city of Terni. Among the legends about Saint Valentine is the story that while he was imprisoned for being a Christian, people would leave notes for him that they folded up and hid in cracks in the rocks around his jail cell. It was said that Valentine would find these notes and offer prayers for the people who had left them. Another legend is that Valentine himself sent the first “valentine” while he was in jail. It was supposedly signed “from your Valentine” and sent to a young girl who had become his friend while he was in prison. A possible explanation for the choice of February for the celebration of Valentine’s Day is that it was chosen by the church to replace the ancient Roman festival of “Lupercalia”. Lupercalia was held each February to honor the god Lupercus. One of the activities of the festival was to put young women’s’ names in a box. Each young man would draw a name from the box, and the woman whose name he picked would become his “lady love”. In Christian times, the tradition changed to putting the names of saints and martyrs into a box instead. The name drawn would become one’s “valentine”, and he was expected to live as that saint had lived. In the year 496, Pope Gelacius I abolished Lupercalia and declared February 14th Saint Valentine’s Day. More than a thousand years later, Valentines Day had become popular throughout Europe, where gift giving and the exchange of hand-made valentines on February 14th was a popular tradition in the 1500s. In America, it was later, in the 1700s, that people began the tradition of exchanging paper “valentines” on Valentine’s Day. In the 1840’s, the first mass-produced valentines were created and sold by a woman named Esther A. Howland. Known as the “Mother of Valentine’s Day,” Ms. Howland sold greetings that she created from pictures, lace and ribbon. Her valentines were so popular that she hired family and friends to help her, and she soon had a successful business. Another American who helped to popularize valentines was a man name George C. Whitney. He started by running a stationery store and by 1888, his company was one of the largest publishers of valentines in the U.S., with offices in New York, Boston and Chicago. The tradition of sending valentines has continued to grow to this day. In fact, now only Christmas cards are sent in greater numbers than

Valentine’s Day Questions 1. February 14th is a. Saint Valentine’s feast day. b. Valentine’s Day. c. traditionally a day to celebrate love. d. All of the above 2. What do we call cards sent for Valentine’s Day? 3. Saint Valentine a. never existed. b. existed, but what we know of him is more legend than fact. c. was the founder of Valentine’s Day. d. None of the above 4. In the Middle Ages, to “court” a woman meant a. to try to win her love. b. to make her a member of the royal family. c. to marry her. d. to take her out on a date. 6. February may have been chosen for Valentine’s Day a. because it was Saint Valentine’s birthday. b. to replace a Roman festival. c. because it was cold and people had more time to spend indoors. d. because it is the shortest month of the year. 7. What is Lupercalia? a. an ancient Roman festival. b. an ancient festival of the Catholic church. c. a name to describe knights and noblemen. d. None of the above 8. During Lupercalia, the names of young women were placed in a box. What happened with these names? a. The people prayed for them to find good husbands. b. Each young man drew the name of a woman who would be his lady love. c. Each young man drew the name of a woman who would become his wife. d. The townspeople made valentines for the young woman. 9. Name the two people who helped popularized Valentine’s Day in America.