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You are here: Hudson's > Mrs Hudson Says... > Mrs Hudson Says | The Origins of Valentine’s Day
Every month, Mrs Hudson along with her three children and Dinky the Irish Wolfhound investigate the best family and dog friendly heritage attractions that the UK has to offer.
It’s the season of love! Thankfully, the children are more excited about half term and pancake day than they are about Valentine’s Day, but it won’t be long before Mr Hudson and I will be competing against them for romantic days out!
This year, Mr Hudson is away over the day itself, and we have already celebrated Dwynwen (I’m Welsh, so of course we celebrate Welsh Valentine’s Day!), so I thought I would make a little romance for myself by researching the reasons behind us celebrating Valentine’s Day and it really has changed from its origins to today! Here’s what I’ve discovered:
Firstly, Valentine’s Day is the saint day for a Saint Valentine, the thing is, no one is sure who that saint really was. St Valentine was a real person, he died around AD 270 but there is some debate over who he actually was. Some think he was the Bishop of Terni, who was beheaded by the Emperor Claudius, which really isn’t that pleasant a start for a day about love. The thing is Valentinus was a pretty popular name among the Latin speaking countries and there were a lot of people who could have be the St Valentine we acknowledge today.
Despite this, you can view bits of St Valentine – his skull is on display in Rome, while other bits of his skeleton can be found in England, Scotland, Ireland and France – as is custom with saints.
Next – he isn’t just the patron saint of love.
St Valentine is also the saint of beekeepers, epilepsy, plague, fainting and travelling. If he can look after all of that, there is no excuse for your significant other to forget to buy you a card really is there? A little fact to save those that forget is that you can actually celebrate Valentine’s several times a year – that’s the beauty of having so many Valentines in the Roman Catholic annals to choose from!
When it comes to Valentine’s Day as we know it, we don’t actually have a saint to thank, we have a writer, Geoffrey Chaucer to be precise. There are no historical records of any romantic celebrations around Valentine’s Day until he published Parliament of Foules in 1357. In his poem, he talks about February 14th being the day that birds and humans come together to find a mate. So, he could very well of invented the idea that we continue to celebrate today. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t being celebrated before his time – Valentine’s Day can be dated back to a Pagan festival and a Roman one – in the festival of Lupercalia, goats and dogs would be sacrificed and then priests would soak their hands in blood and slap women on the streets – apparently it was a fertility blessing.
So now you know! Will you be doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day this year? The kids and I will likely be attending one of the many events on offer here.
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