But who was this Valentin that we celebrate every February 14?
We have to go back several centuries, in the 3rd century AD, to discover the very romanticized journey of this man, which we still struggle to know if he was a priest or monk. To the beginnings of Christianity, in an ancient Rome that persecuted Christians, Valentin de Terni was known to marry believers. Unions that did not please the emperor Claude II the Gothic, who preferred men to turn to his wars rather than to women and the construction of a home. According to legend, it is the sovereign himself who will order the arrest of Valentin.
According to legend, Valentin will befriend Julia, the daughter of her jailer or a magistrate responsible for her surveillance according to the versions. Blind from birth, she will fall in love with the prisoner, who told her about the beauty of the world while she brought her food. In contact with Valentin, Julia will finally find the use of her eyes one evening when a light springs from the cell. By this miracle and by his words, Valentin would have managed to convert the young Roman to Christianity, as well as all her family. Warm by the advertising of these events, Claude II will order the execution of Valentin. As a martyr, he will be beaten and beheaded on the Flaminia route, on February 14, 269.
What is the history of Valentine’s Day?
The tradition of Valentine’s Day did not start with the Valentin of Terni’s myth, built from scratch by the papacy after his death. It is indeed a legacy of ancient Rome, but finds its origins in another event: the lupercales. Organized every February 15, the Lupercales then celebrate Faunus Lupercus, God of fertility, shepherds and herds. Rite of purification, organized at the end of the Roman year (which begins on March 1), this pagan celebration takes place in three stages. First of all, the priests sacrifice a goat in the Lupercal cave (on the side of Mount Palatine), where, according to legend, the Louve was breastfeeding the founders of Rome Romulus and Rémus. They then coat young people from noble families of the blood of sacrifice in a ceremonial which symbolizes the purification of shepherds.
There follows the “race of the Luperques”, during which the priests and the young people, covered with the skin of the sacrificed animals, run in the streets of the city and fuck the passers -by with strips cut in the skin of the same animal. Women, in particular, place themselves on their journey, in the hope of having a happy pregnancy and a painless childbirth. Finally, the celebrations end with a large banquet, during which young men draw their partner for the evening. A practice that sometimes leads to the formation of lasting couples and leads, why not, to marriage.
A Christian event
Valentine’s Day would then have been instituted by the Church only to counter the pagan festivals. The hypothesis, supported by many historian, is not attested by any written source of the time. Only certain fact: at the end of the 5th century, the lupercales were one of the last pagan rites still observed in a majority Christian Rome. Pope Gélase I then sends a “letter against the Lupercales” to Senator Andromaque, who demonstrated a certain attachment to this traditional celebration. In this letter, he criticizes the immoral behaviors that take place during this celebration, makes fun of the superstitions of Christians who honor demons to dismiss the bad fate and stresses that these celebrations did not prevent epidemics twenty years earlier. However, contrary to popular belief, the Pope did not prohibit this pagan celebration: he was content to show the contradiction that there is between the Christian faith and the celebration of the lupercales. Gélase chose in 496 to commemorate, on February 14, Saint Valentine, who became the patron saint of lovers. And will give rise to a potentially most romantic party.
Cupid, the god of love
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the equivalent of the Greek god of love eros. Lanted love desire, Cupid (Latin cupidodesire) is often represented in the form of a child, armed with an arc and a quiver filled with arrows, faithful companion of her mother Venus, goddess of love and beauty.
He is also known to be the hero of psyche legend. According to this myth, Psyche is a princess so beautiful that the inhabitants of the kingdom abandon the cult of Venus for her benefit. Furious, the goddess decides to punish the girl and orders Cupid to inspire her a passion for being the ugliest he can find. But the young God falls in love with the princess and cannot accept what his mother asks her. After sending an oracle to the king, who asks him to abandon his daughter on an isolated rock, he had psyche removed by the breeze of Zéphyr who wins to a sumptuous palace, located in an unknown valley. He joins her every night, during his sleep, under a human appearance, and makes her promise never to seek to know her appearance. Unfortunately, on the injunction of her sisters, a psyche yields to curiosity and sheds light on her husband’s face when he is asleep. A drop of oil fell on his body awakens him: he gets up and flies away. Uncoathable, Psyche goes in search of her husband and must overcome a series of tests imposed by Venus. At their outcome, Cupid, who regrets his wife, obtains from Jupiter the permission to take Psyche to Mount Olympe, where she becomes immortal and gives birth to a girl by the name of “voluptuousness”.
The dark side of Valentine’s Day
In the book “Valentine’s Day, my love!”, At the editions that liberate, the historian and sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann tells us about Valentine of ancient times. And proves that the “myth” of Valentine’s Day, as a Christian character, was largely diverted for political and religious ends (see below). What surprise those who abhor this celebration often deemed too cute or architecture.
According to Jean-Claude Kaufmann, there are several saints by the name of Valentin who were originally protective of the “vineyard against phylloxera”, “cows”, “of the disease” and even “the culture of onions “… but not love. And there is worse. Jean-Claude Kaufmann makes an inventory traditions to say the least doubtful or even completely abject who have, over the centuries, led to the birth of Valentine’s Day as we know it today. The author of “Valentine’s Day, my love!” In particular, quotes the cult of the bear, which was celebrated in the Middle Ages, far from the romantic Valentin that we have been presented since. Considered the animal closest to man and with unbridled sexuality, it was the object of many theories like that of Bishop Guillaume d’Auvergne, who wrote in 1231 that “when a woman was Mount with a bear, it gives birth to a human baby “.
Even further in horror, the author recalls that During the ancient lupercales festivals, the origin of Valentine’s Dayit was a question of “purifying” women by whisking their buttocks or belly to make sure to make them fertile. In the 15th century, in a society where sexuality was restrained and solidly framed marriage, another tradition proceeded by Collective rapes, accepted by the company. “Young men went to the victim, during the night, heckled under his windows to call him, treating her from ‘Ribaude’. Then, as she was silent, we were breaking her door,” writes Jean-Claude Kaufmann, who indicates that the phenomenon was so massive that half of the men had already participated in this type of rape and that the victims, deflowered before marriage, had no choice but prostitution. Several extracts from the work have been compiled by France Info.
What is the Valentine’s Day calendar?
Here are the days of the week that the next Valentine will take place, from Valentine’s Day 2025:
- Valentine’s Day 2025: Friday February 14.
- Valentine’s Day 2026: SATURDAY February 14.
- Valentine’s Day 2027: Sunday February 14.