“It started with furtive glances during Mr. Janssen's math lessons and ended in tears in the back of the bike shed. But in between, there was the card with the red envelope that I found in my locker on February 14, 1998. 'You know who's from', was scrawled in a boyish handwriting. And did I know. Of course, there was also a card with a red envelope in his locker. Although carefully selected at the local bookstore, the card unfortunately could not prevent him from celebrating spring with another girl three weeks later.”
For most holidays that we celebrate in the Netherlands, you can generally tell what you are celebrating. But what about the day of Saint Valentine? The day of romantic (secret) love?
It will come as no surprise that Valentine's Day, Lievekesdag in Flemish, is not originally a Christian invention. In Roman times, the Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15. It is believed that it was a festival in honor of the patron goddess of women and marriage, Juno, and of Pan, the god of the forest, cattle and animal instinct. It was a wild fertility festival. Unmarried men drew the names of unmarried women from a bowl, and they were thus a couple during the festival (and who knows, even afterwards...). Belts were also made of goat skins, which the men swung through the streets; a tap of the belt was said to benefit fertility.
The Church obviously did not like the idea of the people having such pagan and perverted customs and they came up with an alternative in the form of Saint Valentine. Two of them, just to be sure! A priest in Rome and a bishop in Terni. One wanted to convert the Roman emperor Claudius II to Christianity. The emperor did not like that and Valentine disappeared behind bars. While he was there he developed warm feelings for the blind daughter of one of the jailers and he made sure she could see again. The night before his death he wrote her a note, 'Farewell, your Valentine'. The other Valentine helped Christians captured by the Romans, but that was not the intention either. There is even a story that one of the Valentines secretly arranged clandestine Christian marriages between the emperor's soldiers and their lovers. The emperor had made a law that the soldiers were not allowed to marry, because they were better soldiers without a wife. However, no historical evidence of this law has been found.
The connection between Saint Valentine and romantic love as we know it today did not occur until the late fourteenth century. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote For this was on St. Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate. Now, mid-February is a bit early for birds to build their nests, but the idea was born. Following Chaucer, the Duke of Orléans (1415) and William Shakespeare (1600-1601, in Hamlet) wrote about it.
And once they did, the floodgates opened. Just as we now have websites for Sinterklaas poems, there was a time in England at the end of the 18th century The Young Man's Valentine Writer , with suggested romantic rules for less endowed men in love. When the postal service was regulated in the 19th century, pre-printed Valentine cards came into use.
Today are The Christmas baubles have not even left the shops yet and there is no escaping the pink, the hearts, the sweets and the pink heart-shaped sweets.
Some people despise the day of St. Valentine, but others (including myself) enjoy the sweetness around Lievekesdag every year. If you are still looking for a last minute Valentine card, then take a look here . You will also get a free stamp.
Sources: Wikipedia & A year full of parties by Bart Lauvrijs