Valentine's Day, 2016

It's Valentine's Day! Why we celebrate love today, who was St Valentine - and everything else you need to know

February 14th is here! Lovers will exchange cards, gifts, flowers and chocolates with their special 'valentine'. Here's everything you need to know

Email

A vintage Valentine card with cupid flying an airplane with a stolen heart Photo: Alamy

By Emily Allen, and Cameron Macphail

12:25PM GMT 14 Feb 2016

While the origin of Valentine's Day is up in the air

it may well  have been some Roman 

adoring an abdomen, 

but whether this  is a true story or just allegory, 

it has always been a case of the horny chasing the fair.

In years past  things, were less fast

and approaches more indirect

with  gifts and meals , 

or chocolates and deals 

but alas, much of that may be  past.

For nowadays  you may see your pet

on the internet

and in the all together,

before needing to decide

on a groom or bride

or just  to brave the weather. 

HzL

2/14/16 (Valentine's Day)

---

Who was St Valentine?

The details are sketchy. Some say St Valentine was a priest from Rome who lived in the third century AD.

Emperor Claudius II had banned marriages, believing married men made bad soldiers and St Valentine is thought to have arranged marriages in secret.

Saint Valentine baptizing Saint Lucilla by Jacopo Bassano

He was imprisoned and sentenced to death for his crimes.

St Valentine apparently fell in love with the jailer’s daughter and sent her a love letter signed ‘from your Valentine’ on February 14th, the day of his execution, as a goodbye.

The name 'Valentinus' is found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, a book which was compiled between 460 and 544.

The feast of St Valentine of February 14th was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among all those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God."

Wearing a coronet made from flowers and with a stencilled inscription, St Valentine's skull now resides in the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, on Rome’s Piazza Bocca della Verità.

The ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia

Some people believe the roots of Valentine's Day stem from the ancient, possibly pre-Roman festival of Lupercalia, dedicated to the god Lupercus; a pastoral festival observed on February 13th through 15th.

Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February (Februarius) its name.

During the festival, young men would draw the name of a woman from a jar, and they would become a couple for the rest of the festival.

Men would strip naked and swat young maidens with dog- or goat-skin whips, to increase their fertility. Fertility of course is meaningless withoutsex, so as time passed, sex became Lupercalia's focus for the average Roman.

In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear the name of the person on their sleeves - hence the expression "to wear your heart on your sleeve".