St Valentine's Day
St Valentine's Day
Valentine's day is drawing near And both men and maids incline
To choose them each a Valentine
[Poor Robyn’s Almanack 1757]
If you love me, love me true,
Send me a ribbon, let it be blue,
If you hate me, let it be seen,
Send me a ribbon and let it be green.
[Lincolnshire 1908]
14 February is associated with St Valentine, the patron saint of lovers, the point, why? Valentinus was a common Roman name and there are two martyrs who bear it. One was a Roman Priest killed in 269 AD and the other an Umbrian Bishop who perished in 273 AD. They both died for their faith and supposedly on 14th February, but in spite of the million and one theories about their links with lovers, there is no historical reason why either of them should be regarded as their patron saint. Perhaps it was for no other reason than the fact that 14 February was the eve of the Roman Feast of Lupercalia, which was partly a fertility festival where animals were sacrificed for the protection of other livestock, but also when young men of high rank ran about striking women with thongs of goatskin in order to make them fruitful!!! Another ritual carried out during this feast was for the men to choose their partners for the year by drawing lots. But the link with old Valentinus (whichever one you fancy) is tenuous, to say the least.
Whatever the origin of the custom, the date, the name of it and the idea of it being a celebration of lovers has persisted for a long time. We have references to joyous recreations and conversations about love in the courts of 14th century England and France on Valentine’s Day, and Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in The Parlement of Foules of the popular belief that 14 February was the day on which birds met to choose their mate for the coming year. The church, of course, attempted to draw people away from such notions by focusing attention on Candlemas... but such ancient traditions did tend to linger.
Anyway, Valentine’s Day became the customary day for exchanging tokens and, more importantly, choosing sweethearts. One way (it has to be admitted) is not far removed from the Roman method of drawing lots. Girls names were written on a piece of paper and placed in a hat to be drawn by the boys...or vice versa. Apart from anything else, this was a good way of overcoming shyness. In the Scottish Borders the names were drawn three times as an infallible test; a name chosen three times in a row was a certain omen of marriage.
An undeniably riskier way of identifying a future spouse on 14 February was to accept as a Valentine the first person of the opposite sex (outside your own family) you actually set eyes upon. Samuel Pepys’ diary records that in 1662 Mrs Pepys shaded her eyes so ‘she may not see the paynters ... gilding [the] chimney piece’ until Will Bowyer came to be her Valentine’. Within living memory children have been seen being led about with their eyes closed until the right Valentine was at hand.
This page is part of our Beginners’ Guide: British Folk Customs From Plough Monday to Hocktide.
