February is right around the corner and as you might well imagine, the season of love is in the air. And for you all single people out there, remember your family loves you and so does everyone here at Sir Holiday, so you too have reason to celebrate this day of love. So go out and eat all the chocolate, red velvet cake and ice cream that you want, because luckily for our waistlines and our social lives Valentine’s Day only comes around once a year. However, as many a person who has ever seen the bill for the required Valentine’s Day gifts, outfits, experiences and so forth will tell you, there seems to be a great question as to why this day came about in the first place. The truth is that it is not a ploy on behalf of all women everywhere to make it mandatory to have a romantic day, filled with chocolates, flowers and candlelight, no this day has its origins in history. Hence let us not delay but rather begin unpacking February the 14^th’s romantic backstory at once.

Ever heard of Saint Valentine, no, well the man of the hour is part of the reason of why we celebrate Valentine’s Day on February the 14^th. Why? Well to answer this question we need to traverse back in time to the Roman Empire, during this time Pope Gelasius saw that many pagan followers still held a fertility feast on Februarythe 15^th to honour the Roman goddess Lupercalia. This upset him greatly, in response to this attack on Christendom; he decided to enact a further feast day to degrade the pagans feast day. Therefore, the feast of St Valentine was henceforth conducted on the 14^th of February.

Who is Saint Valentine, we don’t know the answer to that, because there were three saints who all died as martyrs for the Catholic Church and they all had names similar to Valentine. Making it rather complicated trying to deduce who exactly Pope Gelasius was attempting to refer to at the time. One legend that probably just added to the outrageous level of romance of this day is the story detailing that Saint Valentine was in fact a priest serving within the Roman army.

The Emperor at this time was Claudius II, the emperor came to the conclusion that men who had no ties to the world in the form of their own wives and children, were a lot more willing to die and take risks in battle and were a lot more committed to battle. Upon realizing this the emperor decided to ban all marriages for young men in the army, so as to increase the likelihood of them staying longer within the army and their commitment to the army in general. However, our hero Saint Valentine would have none of that, realizing how this halted these young men from answering true loves call, he made an action that would ultimately cost him his life.

Saint Valentine conducted these weddings in secret for the young couples, when he was found out by the authorities; Emperor Claudius II had him sentenced to death.

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Love link:

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Roman army link:

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