Valentine’s Day
The pagan roots of Valentine’s Day, the feast of lovers, were unrestrained and uninhibited. Then a Pope arrived who Christianized the celebration with a saint, or rather, with three saints.
The tradition of Valentine’s Day, the feast of lovers, dates back to Roman times, in 496 AD, when then-Pope Gelasius I wanted to put an end to the Lupercalia, the ancient pagan rites dedicated to the god of fertility, Lupercus.
These rites were celebrated on February 15th and involved unrestrained festivities and were openly in contrast with the morals and the Christian idea of love.
Naked and whipped. In particular, the highlight of the festival occurred when Roman matrons offered themselves, spontaneously and in the street, to the whippings of a group of naked young men, devotees of the wild Faunus Lupercus. Even pregnant women willingly submitted to the ritual, convinced that it would be good for the birth of their child.
Ultimately, the spectacle offered by the bodies of those handsome young men, who made their way completely naked or, at most, with a leather kilt tight around their hips, was enough to alleviate the pain.
To “baptize” the feast of love, Pope Gelasius I decided to move it to the previous day – dedicated to Saint Valentine – making him, in a way, the protector of lovers.
SAINT VALENTINE ARRIVES. But is it one, two, or more? There are, however, many saints named Valentine, and, apart from the fact that they were all martyrs, not much is known about them. Two are the most well-known.
The first, born in Interamna (today Terni) in 176, protected lovers, guided them towards marriage, and encouraged them to bring children into the world. Religious (and non-historical) literature describes the saint as a healer of epileptics and a defender of love stories.
Especially when these are unhappy: it is said, for example, that he made peace between two engaged couples who were arguing, offering them a rose.
“Mixed marriages.” The second, however, is said to have died in Rome on February 14, 274, beheaded. According to some sources, he would be the same bishop of Terni. For others – a more plausible thesis – he would be another Christian martyr. For still others, he would never have existed.
In any case, it is said that Valentine was executed because he had celebrated the marriage between the Christian Serapia and the Roman legionary Sabinus, who was instead a pagan. The ceremony took place quickly, because the young woman was ill. And the two spouses died, together, just as Valentine was blessing them. The martyrdom of the celebrant would then close the circle of tragedy.
The origin. In reality, the modern credit for having consecrated Saint Valentine as the patron saint of love is to be attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the Canterbury Tales, who at the end of the 14th century wrote – in honor of the wedding between Richard II and Anne of Bohemia – The Parliament of Fowls, a poem in 700 verses that associates Cupid with Saint Valentine.
Who thus became the otherworldly intermediary of the dimension of Courtly Love.
