Saturday 14 February 2015

St Valentine - A legend



St Valentine's Day or the Feast of St Valentine is a celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentine and observed around the world on February 14. There are several legends of martyrdom around St Valentine, one of which was Saint Valentine of Rome who was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and also for ministering to Christians who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. Legend has it that during his imprisonment he healed the daughter of his jailer, and before his execution he wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell.

The medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer may have invented Valentine's Day. He often took liberties with history, placing his poetic characters into fictitious contexts that he represented as real.  In his work "Parliament of Foules" he links a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St Valentine's feast day. The poem refers to February 14 as "the day birds (and humans) come together to find a mate".

In Great Britain Valentine's Day celebrations became quite popular around the 17th century. 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 1900 printed cards began to appear.

After 45 years together, John and I still uphold this little romantic tradition.

HAPPY ST VALENTINE'S DAY !





(text based on an article by History.com)




13 comments:

  1. Well done after all this time as well. It is something we don't celebrate. Only did for the first few years but as I don't like to eat chocolate much and would rather not have cut flowers, it left DB a little nonplussed what to buy so we stopped!

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  2. Interesting post Patricia - my little token of affection from my husband was a garden riddle - beat that! Haha.

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  3. Lovely post, I hope you have a great day. How lovely that you still celebrate after all that time together x

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  4. We still celebrate too, we'll always be special to each other.

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  5. Fascinating post, Patricia. Hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day:)

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  6. That is so romantic and sweet Patricia - H and I make each other cards, and I have some Belgian truffles too, but I shall take them to share with my grandchildren when we visit them on Pancake day next Tuesday.

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  7. Interesting......love the history of St Valentine.

    My husband and I have been married for the same length in time......it is good to keep the romance alive, isn't it ?

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  8. My Valentine and I had a lovely day and I'm sure you did too with those sweet expressions of romance you show in your photo, Patricia.

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  9. Thank you for sharing the legend/s of St Valentine, Patricia, which is very interesting. Love that you celebrate too, we are just a little behind you, 44 years this year. We have always exchanged cards, and enjoy finding just the right one! xx

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  10. Congratulations Patricia, we a re an unusual breed I think, we cracked 44 years last October, and people seem amazed! MAny more Happy Valentines to you and your John! Lx

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  11. Here's to hoping that you have many more wonderful happy valentines days together! xx

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  12. That's so interesting, thanks for sharing your knowledge and a belated happy Valentine's to you and John.
    Xx

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  13. It's nice to have traditions! I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

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