A BRIEF HISTORY OF VALENTINE'S DAY

The Parentalia and Feralia Festivals of Purification (3rd or 4th Century BC) were celebrated from February 13-18 which coincided with the Fertility Festival. The latter, was apparently the "Myspace" of early Rome, where all the willing girls would enter their names into a box, and drawn by every young man. What happened next was reffered to as a "right of passage", and I'm sure you can imagine what went on.

Before that, however there was the LUPERCALIA (from the Latin lupus meaning "wolf"). During this day, priests, known as Luperci, from two colleges (Quintillii and Fabii) would meet at the Cave of Lupercal in the Palatine Hill, where a she-wolf was said to have nursed Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome. Vestal Virgins would offer holy salt cakes and the priests would sacrifice a dog and a goat, smearing the animal blood onto the foreheads of youths of noble birth who, clad only in a goatskin thong, later led a band of revelers known as the luperci in the performance of such antics as whipping fields of crops and bystanders with a goatskin strip (known as the februa). Women gently lashed in such a fashion were thought to become fertile...even those known to be barren. The act of such lashings or whippings was known as februatio...both this word and the word februa come from the Latin meaning "to purify." The naming of the month of February is believed to have originated from this meaning. So basically, February means "to purify by beating with a goatskin strip."

When Christianity was eventually formed, they attempted to replace these rituals with something a little more uplifting. Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercian Festival, but kept the name-drawing part—changing it just a little: Instead of single girls, they wrote the names of Saints, and both girls and boys were to emulate the life of whatever saint they chose. This didn't go over too well, and eventually it was back to picking your new BF/GF from a box.

But then, In Rome in A.D. 270, a man named Valentine had enraged the mad emperor Claudius II, who had issued an edict forbidding marriage. Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers, because they were loathe to leave their families for battle. The empire needed soldiers, so Claudius, never one to fear unpopularity, abolished marriage.

Valentine, bishop of Interamna, invited young lovers to come to him in secret, where he joined them in the sacrament of matrimony. Claudius learned of this "friend of lovers," and had the bishop brought to the palace. The emperor, impressed with the young priest's dignity and conviction, attempted to convert him to the Roman gods, to save him from otherwise certain execution. Valentine refused to renounce Christianity and imprudently attempted to convert the emperor. It didn't work and he was sentenced to death. While Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer, Asterius. Through his unswerving faith, he miraculously restored her sight. He signed a farewell message to her "From Your Valentine," a phrase that would live long after its author died.

Soon after, on February 14th (or so history claims) Valentine was clubbed, stoned, then beheaded.

So, essentially you're celebrating: blood, sacrificed animals, lashings, wolves and martyrs.

Makes Valentine's Day way more entertaining, don't you think?