Today is
St. Valentine's Day.
The Roman Emperor Claudius Gothicus (May 10, 214 – January 270), decided to abolish the institution of marriage for many, as he felt that husbands did not make good soldiers. Claudius tried to enforce the new law with the utmost rigor. Valentine of Terni, who had become bishop of Interamna, considered such a policy against the spirit of God and of human nature and was secretly marrying Christians. His "crime" was discovered and while on a temporary stay in Rome Bishop Valentine was arrested, imprisoned, and brutally clubbed to death on February 14, 269.
Bishop Valentine had prayed for the restoration of a young girl's sight, and she was cured. Shortly before his death he wrote the girl a farewell message signed "From your Valentine."
St. Valentine's Day was set as February 14th by Pope Gelasius I in 494. He included Saint Valentine among all those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God."
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
Geoffrey Chaucer, who is more known as the writer of The Canterbury Tales. also wrote other things, such as a 700 line poem in 1382 called the Parliament of Foules, written in honor of the first anniversary of King Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia's engagement. Chaucer mentioned, in his “Parliament of Foules” a belief that February 14 was the date birds choose their mate. This poem is generally considered to include the first explicit Valentine's Day / love connection.
