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St Valentine''s Day is part of Britain''s culture, for one day a year we invest in cards, flowers, meals, holidays, hotels, just about anything that can be given in the form of a gift to show our nearest and dearest that we love them (even if we do often do it grudgingly). Yet, for all the attention that is devoted to the day each year, how many people actually know who St Valentine was? Or what he or she did to merit St Valentine''s Day. Simply enough, there is no single St Valentine. In early Christianity there were several St Valentines of which two claim February 14th as their feast day. These two are Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni, both of whom are buried on the same street in Rome. Neither of these two men have any proven link to romance. There is some suggestion that a third St Valentine may be able to claim February 14th as his own. Early Catholic martyrologies (not always the most reliable source) suggest that a Valentine was martyred in Africa with a group of followers, but little is known about him aside from those few details. One suggested source of Valentine''s Day comes from fictionalised accounts of the life of Valentine of Terni. One account suggests that Emperor Claudius II tried to convince Valentine to convert to paganism, in response Valentine tried to convert Claudius to Christianity and proved Christ''s holiness by restoring the sight of the blind daughter of his jailer. This text, however, carries no romantic connotations whatsoever, but has been in developed in modern times to include St Valentine as a priest who performed marriage ceremonies for young men after Emperor Claudius II allegedly ordered all men to remain single. Valentine was consequently arrested and wrote the first Valentine to a young girl who is reported to have been his beloved. That young girl is the daughter of the jailer in the original text. The story was invented in the 1900s at the latest and has no historical basis. Other stories place the credit for Valentine''s Day at the door of Chaucer, who some argue mentioned the day in a work that he created for the wedding treaty of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia which was signed on May 2nd. May 2nd is the Saints Day for Valentine of Genoa, wholly unconnected to February 14th, but probably the reason for the connection of love to Valentine''s Day. So, how do we get from this tenuous link to the modern St Valentine''s Day? Partially via the courtly love poets of the 14th and 15th centuries, who, tradition has it, sent poems and messages to the objects of their loved ones, particularly on Valentine''s Day. Hence our tradition of giving cards. The most likely explanation of Valentine''s Day is that there was a confusion between the Valentine''s Day mentioned in Chaucer''s work with the two early Valentines celebrated on February 14th. Regardless of the historical basis of the day, however, for all our scepticism it remains incredibly popular and there are no signs that that is going to change.
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Nita Hannibal, the author of this article, has worked in the flower industry for many years and knows very well that the best online flower service is Interflora.
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