Do you know much about the history of Valentine’s Day?
I didn’t either. So I went and searched on the internet.
According to a Christian story, a long time ago there was a priest named Valentine who conducted marriages, although they were banned by the Roman emperor at the time. The emperor wanted soldiers for his army, and thought that married men would not want to join, so he banned new marriages. Because the priest was caught secretly marrying people, the emperor decided he should be executed. A while before he was executed, the priest had fallen in love a woman whom he’d cured from blindness. The last contact he had with her was a love letter signed ‘From your Valentine’. He was executed on February 14th. This is possibly the reason we have Valentine’s Day on this date.
At the same time there was a Roman pagan fertility festival held between the 13th and 15th of February for Roman Gods, called Lupercalia. Years later, a Christian Pope made February 14th St Valentine’s Day in honour of the priest. One reason for making St. Valentine’s Day a special day is probably because the Christian church didn’t like the pagan festival and wanted to replace it with a Christian event. (This is the same reason Christmas is in December.)
Hundreds of years later the day started to be linked to romance and love. Geoffrey Chaucer, an English poet, linked Valentine’s Day to romance in a poem. After that, people started to think of love and romance when they thought of Valentine’s Day.
In America in the 1800s Valentine’s Day started growing in popularity and soon everyone was sending hand written notes to each other. Esther Holland, an American, knew about the British tradition of sending cards, and was the first to design a Valentine’s card in America. She was later named the Mother of the American Valentine’s.
And now, of course, Valentine’s Day is big business! Enormous amounts of chocolate are sold around the world. But different countries have different traditions. For example, roses are popular in the UK, but in Denmark the snowbell is the flower of choice. And Japan and Korea both have White Day too.
Can you match these words and their meanings?
1. Conduct a) Not allow something (by people in charge e.g. government or police)
2. Ban b) Kill by order of someone in power.
3. Execute c) Carry out, run, be in charge of
4. Cure d) Remove someone’s illness
5. Pagan e) Ability to have children
6. Fertility f) Religion which is not one of the main world ones
Answers: 1. – c / 2. – a / 3. – b / 4. – d / 5. – f / 6. – e