How long has valentines day been celebrated

It's the day when people show their affection for another person or people by sending cards, flowers or chocolates with messages of love. The day gets its name from a famous saint, but there are several stories of who he was. Emperor Claudius II had banned marriage because he thought married men were bad soldiers.

Valentine felt this was unfair, so he broke the rules and arranged marriages in secret. When Claudius found out, Valentine was thrown in jail and sentenced to death. There, he fell in love with the jailer's daughter and when he was taken to be killed on 14 February he sent her a love letter signed "from your Valentine". By the Middle Ages , perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa.

The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn.

These matches often ended in marriage. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. The English poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record St. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a poem written in by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.

The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection of the British Library in London, England. Several years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

Accounts of his birth vary; some say he is the son of Nyx and Erebus; others, of Aphrodite and Ares; still others suggest he is the son of Iris and Zephyrus or even Aphrodite and Zeus who would have been both his father and grandfather. According to the Greek Archaic poets, Eros was a handsome immortal played with the emotions of Gods and men, using golden arrows to incite love and leaden ones to sow aversion.

By the middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and by printed cards began to replace written letters due to improvements in printing technology. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early s.

Couples send Valentine's Day cards and flowers and spend special time together to honour their love for each other. There are many stories about St Valentine and over time these stories grew into the legend we know today. At the time of Valentine's life, many Romans were converting to Christianity, but the Emperor Claudius II was a pagan and created strict laws about what Christians were allowed to do. Claudius believed that Roman soldiers should be completely devoted to Rome and therefore passed a law preventing them from marrying.

St Valentine began to marry these soldiers in secret Christian ceremonies and this was the beginning of his reputation for believing in the importance of love. Eventually, Valentine was found out and jailed for his crimes against Claudius. While imprisoned, Valentine cared for his fellow prisoners and also his jailor's blind daughter. Valentine was executed on 14 February in the year It wasn't until more than years later that 14 February was proclaimed St Valentine's Day.

The Saint Valentine prayer asks Saint Valentine to connect lovers together, so that two become one, and the couple remembers their devotion to God. While the Saint Valentine story set the groundwork for establishing the day as a holiday for romantic love, what truly solidified the connection between Saint Valentine and love was a poem by medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer in , which historians consider the origin of the "modern" celebration of Valentine's Day, where we celebrate our romantic partnership with one other person.

Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, the era of courtly love, when broad, romantic statements of devotion—poems, songs, paintings—celebrated partnership. By the end of the 15th century, the word "valentine" was being used to describe a lover in poems and songs of the day, and in the 18th century, a book called The Young Man's Valentine Writer was published in England.

By the midth century, mass-produced paper Valentine's Cards were being created though Valentine card ideas are still worth trying , and Valentine's Day as we know it was born. The truth about Valentine's Day history is that the romantic holiday isn't immune to trauma. In Prohibition Chicago in , seven men were killed by a gang organized by Al Capone on February The Valentine's Day Massacre became a flashpoint in Prohibition history, with police and lawmakers going after the gangs and mobs that had formed in cities to control then-illegal substances like alcohol.

Over the years and centuries , Valentine's Day has been a religious celebration, an ancient ritual day, and a commercial holiday. All that change means the meaning of Valentine's Day is truly whatever you want it to be: You can skip the celebrations completely, buy yourself some chocolate or flowers, or express your love and appreciation for the people in your life, whether they're co-workers, romantic partners, friends, or family members.

Some people love Valentine's Day, and some people just love to hate it; Galentine's Day and Galentine's Day gifts are a relatively new way to celebrate, as women stock up on Valentine's Day ideas for her and celebrate their love for their closest friends.