Valentine's Day, the History

By sweet historical romance author, Donna Hatch

A re-post, but this is as timely today as it was 6 years ago :-)

As a romance author and hopeless romantic, I cannot possibly ignore Valentine’s Day. I admit, until I started researching the topic, I really didn't know the real history behind Valentine’s day except it was to honor a Christian named Valentine who was martyred for marrying people in secret. Which really didn't make sense to me. Was he martyred because he was Christian? Or because he was marrying people? To my surprise, I found the answer to be a bit of both. Maybe. Although no one really sure who, exactly the famous Valentine actually was. And much is couched in myth and speculation. However, here's some fun history, sprinkled liberally with legend.

This much appears to be factual: In Rome 270 C.E. the Emperor Claudius II put out an edict saying no man could marry. Ever.

??????

Talk about a stupid law!!!! No marriage? At all? And sex outside of marriage was considered to "prostitution" which was illegal. Talk about a bunch of unhappy people. And how were children to be brought into the world? Did he think it was okay for his entire country to become extinct in a single generation? Clearly, this brainless emperor didn’t think that one through.

But he apparently did have a reason for it. He felt that marriage made men "soft" and therefore unreliable soldiers. Men wouldn’t want to leave his wife and child AND die for his country, and because Emperor Claudius needed a massive army to maintain his vast empire. So, he outlawed marriage. Clearly he wasn't worried about becoming unpopular with his crazy law nor having a country peopled with soldiers for his posterity.

Into this confusing chaos steps Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna, who invited all young lovers to come secretly marry and, in turn, converted quite a few people to Christianity. Clearly this man was intelligent – much smarter than the Emperor because while getting his way of converting people to Christianity, he also saw to the needs of disgruntled lovers. Aw, isn’t that sweet?

Or it might have been a ploy to convert heathens. Either way, the Emperor inevitably found out, and had Valentine arrested.

The odd thing is, Valentine may not have been condemned for going against the Emperor's edict. Some accounts suggest it was because he refused to renounce Christianity and convert to Roman ways AND even attempted to convert the Emperor to Christianity. Talk about pluck! According to legend, while Valentine was awaiting execution, he befriended a girl who was the blind daughter of the jailer. While in jail, Valentine restored her eyesight through his faith. Some people believe he fell in love with her. Then he supposedly wrote her a farewell letter on the day that he was stoned (or beaten, according to some sources) and then beheaded. Another account reports he simply died in prison, probably of typhus, or gaol (jail) fever. At any rate, Valentine reportedly signed his love letter, "FROM YOUR VALENTINE."

We have been using his name, and even that phrase, ever since.

Also, there appears to have been anywhere from three to seven men who bore that name and were martyred, or died while in service to the church. Apparently one helped a number of Christians escape prison where they were being beaten and tortured. This Valentine was caught and executed. Another Valentine was a missionary in Africa, but little is known about him. Or, it’s possible, they were all the same men, but accounts of his death have been muddied. However, we do know that Valentinus, or Valentine, was a very common Roman name.

Though the marrying Valentine was executed on February 24, (according to some sources, anyway) 270, the Christian church chose to honor him and all the Valentines – who all supposedly died on or near February 14 – on February 14th because they wanted to replace a Roman rite of passage to the God of Lupercus. Part of the festival included men running around and slapping young women with a strap dipped in blood with the idea it was supposed to make them fertile. Another practice in that festival involved putting the names of virgins in a box (I wonder if they were willing or unwilling?) and drawn by not so virginal men (ARE there any virginal men?) in a lottery. Whichever girl was drawn was then assigned to "pleasure" the lucky man until the next lottery, which was a year later. (poor girl!!!) Sounds like a premise for a book, doesn’t it?

Anyway, the church was appalled by this pagan holiday (I don't blame them) so they chose to substitute it with a close second. Well, okay, maybe by the men’s standards it wasn’t such a close substitute. But Valentine’s Day appealed to the love aspect of the ritual instead of sex. I’m sorta surprised the men went for it, men being what they are. But I guess pleasing his wife, or the girl whom he hopes will be his wife someday, in the hopes he’ll get lucky (ahem) was the best substitute a good Christian man could hope for.

So, happy Valentine's day! And be grateful we aren't Roman!!!

Clothing in Ancient Rome

Because my books begin in Caesar's time and go through the fourteenth century, I'm fascinated by how fashions changed through the centuries, and research for my historical novels has turned into a fun and time-consuming hobby.
The Roman Republic was heavily influenced by Greek culture, in everything from its literature to architecture and fashions. Much of our knowledge of early clothing comes to us from works of art, salvaged in part from archeological digs, and now residing in museums all over the world.
The standard Roman garment was the tunic, commonly called the T-tunic as its cut was basically the shape of a T. Over the tunic, men wore their togas, if they went to the Forum. Commoners usually wore plain brown tunics of wool. Yes, even in the summer, but their wool was not what ours is today. Rather it was a soft weave and could be worn in the summer. Patricians or nobles wore garments of linen and silk, usually ornamented with a band (or bands) to denote their office or status.
The cover of my first ebook shows what kind of modified Greek-style garment may have been worn by Roman patricians during Julia's time. The cover represents Julia well because she loved poetry, as did her lover, Marc Anthony's son. I wrote this novel under a nom de plume, Elizabeth Elson. It's now available at online retailers for kindle, nook, and other ereaders. During Read An Ebook week, (March 4th through March 10th) Smashwords is running a promotional, and Julia's story is available for a 25% discount only on the Smashwords site and using the discount code, REW25.

If you want to read further about period clothing, there's an interesting website, with terms and careful description of articles of clothing, here .

The Dog Days of Summer

The Dog Days of Summer are the hottest, most sweltering days of the year. Depending on your location, they run for about a month between early July to the beginning of September in the northern hemisphere, and from January to March in the southern hemisphere.

The term "Dog Days" refers to the days when Sirius, the Dog Star, rises with the sun.

The ancient Egyptians associated Horus, the dog-headed god, with Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major (The Greater Dog) and the brightest star in the night sky. During this time, Sirius rose at dawn during the most blistering part of summer. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans believed the bright Sirius, so close to the sun, added its radiation to the sun's, increasing the season's already fierce heat.

To the ancients, these sultry days, when rainfall is at its lowest and temperature its highest, was an evil time, causing suffering and disease in man and beast. Food spoiled, dogs went mad and all creatures languished in the stifling atmosphere.

Due to the precession of the equinoxes (the change in the earth's orientation to the night sky as our globe revolves around the galactic center), Sirius no longer rises at daybreak on the same dates as it did for the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. In the Roman era, the Dog Days ran from July 24 through August 24. Today, the Dog Days run from July 3 to August 11, according to The Old Farmers' Almanac, although many European cultures adhere to the original dates.

So, if you're awake before dawn during the peak of summer, take a look at the eastern sky. That bright star near the horizon is Sirius, heralding the Dog Days of Summer.

Thank you all,
Linda

The picture, from Wikipedia, is of Canis Major. Sirius marks the dog's nose.

Center of Roman life

Continuing with elements of life in ancient Rome, today I'm writing the first post about their houses, and the subject is so interesting that I'll divide my posts into possibly three. Most of what we know pertains to larger homes, but we can suppose smaller houses were built along these lines, though with less costly materials and fewer rooms.
Roman homes had no windows until much later. Instead, the air and light came from openings in the roof. The main room, the Atrium, was the center of domestic life. It was reached by passing through a vestibule. Other rooms opened off the atrium, and I'll discuss those later.
Three elements important to the atrium were the hearth, a symbolic bed, and a place to display the family lares, which are the ancestral spirits and representations of the pagan gods and goddesses the family worshipped.
The hearth may be burning or not, and might even contain a fire brought directly from the Vesta fire tended by the Vestal Virgins.
The bed, originally used for the oldest esteemed member to sleep on, later became a symbol of family continuity. For a wedding, it was decorated with flowers and costly bedding in hopes the symbol would promote fertility and many sons.
The lares were displayed on an altar, the spot where ceremonies took place, like this picture.
Other furnishing, beyond the specified three, might be couches and a marble bust of the owner or distinguished family members.
In the middle of the room was a sunken pool which caught rainwater and distributed it to an area below the floor. In cooler climates north of the Mediterranean, pipes carried heated water beneath the floor to warm the house. The early Romans were engineering geniuses, not only with their aqueducts and underground storage facilities, but also with their home construction.

Roman Clothing: B.C. to 5 A.D.

Because my books begin in Caesar's time and go through the fourteenth century, I'm fascinated by how fashions changed through the centuries, and research for my historicals has, I'm afraid, turned into a fun and time-consuming hobby.
The Roman Republic, and later, the Roman Empire, was heavily influenced by Greek culture, in everything from its literature to architecture and fashions. Much of our knowledge of early clothing comes to us from works of art, salvaged in part from archeological digs, and now residing in museums all over the world.
The standard Roman garment was the tunic, commonly called the T-tunic as its cut was basically the shape of a T. Over the tunic, men wore their togas, if they went to the Forum. Commoners usually wore plain brown tunics of wool. Yes, even in the summer, but their wool was not what ours is today. Rather it was a soft weave and could be worn in the summer. Patricians or nobles wore garments of linen and silk, usually ornamented with a band (or bands) to denote their office or status.
Women wore tunics, too, and since most of what we know comes from extant art, which more commonly depicts well-off citizens, the elegant draping of garments during this period looks much like Greek fashion; over a lady's tunic, which might only come to her knees, she wore a stola, a floor-length dress styled much like our 'jumpers', and clasped at the shoulders with ornamental fasteners. Over this came a palla, a shawl of sorts, worn draped around the shoulders or waist. In cold weather, she wore a cloak, sometimes hooded.
An interesting website, with terms and careful description of articles of clothing, can be seen at www.uky.edu/AS/classics/jlsgloss.html.
Clothing changed little until the 5th century, an era we call Byzantine, a term coined later and one the Byzantines themselves never used. Byzantine dress is fascinating, and I'll blog about that later.