Valentine's Day

Not really a day I'm interested in, but the guys on my favourite hockey podcast were talking about briefly. As part of his justification for despising this particular "holiday", one of the guys insinuated that Hallmark literally invented Valentine's Day in order to capitalise on romance. If true, it's genius. I was curious - and skeptical - so I looked into it.

I wish it was true, as it'd be a perfectly good reason to boycott the day entirely, instead of actually going to any effort to secure a date, but it's not. The day itself has very legitimate origins, dating way back to the third century AD, when Saint Valentine of Rome died on February 14th, 269.

It wasn't for another 225 years that the occasion was marked with a formal celebration, when Pope Gelasius I held the first Feast of Saint Valentine, to honour his now thoroughly decomposed compadre.

Fast forward a further 800 years, and Valentine's Day takes on a more romantic hue. The European Middle Ages were rife with courtly love - no, not Courtney Love. Courtly love is what we're used to seeing depicted between men and women within many Medieval or Middle Age period literature, film or theatre. Think chivalrous men of Nobility charming the chastity belts right off of their pretty, proper, and probably pre-teen - if we're being realistic - objects of affection.

It was during the 14th century that courtly love and the Father of English literature - Geoffrey Chaucer - popularised Saint Valentine's Day as a cause for romantic celebration, and over the next 400-ish years this sentiment spread. In the 1800's, if you had time in between bouts of disease, famine or extreme poverty, it was likely a very pleasant holiday, filled with romantic gestures, acts of love and a whole lotta unprotected sex.

That's what I learned today.