Roman Lupercalia Festival

Roman Lupercalia Festival, Precursor of Valentine's Day?

Lupercalia:

On February 15 the Lupercalia was celebrated in Rome to worship the she-wolf who suckled Romulus & Remus the founders of the city of Rome.

It started with a group of specially appointed priests gathering at the Lupercal, a cave at the bottom of the Papatine Hill in Rome. The roman priests would offer a goat in sacrifice, and annoint the Lupercii (young male participants) on their foreheads with the blood. The blood was wiped away with milk by other priests, and the young men laughed at them. The Lupercii them skinned the sacrificed goat and ripped the hide into strips which they tied around their naked waists. They then got drunk, and ran around the streets of Rome striking everyone they met with goatskin thongs. Young women who were touched in this manner were thought to be specially blessed, especially in regards to fertility and procreation.

February fertility festivals

The association of the middle of February with love and fertility is not new and dates to ancient times. In the Ancient Athen's calendar, the period between mid January and mid February was the month of Gamelion, which was dedicated to the sacred marriage of the Greek gods Zeus and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, the day of February 15 was Lupercalia, the festival of Lupercus, the god of fertility, who was represented as half-naked and dressed in goat skins. As part of the purification ritual, the priests of Lupercus would sacrifice goats to the god, and after drinking wine, they would run through the streets of Rome holding pieces of the goat skin above their heads, touching anyone they met. Young women especially would come forth voluntarily for the occasion, in the belief that being so touched would render them fruitful and bring easy childbirth.

The three different Saint Valentine

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908), at least three different Saints Valentine, all of them martyrs and all quite obscure, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of February 14:

a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom in the second half of the 3rd century and was buried on the Via Flaminia.
a bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) also suffered martyrdom in the second half of the 3rd century and was also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than the priest.
a martyr in North Africa, about whom little else is known.

The connection between Saint Valentine and romantic love is not mentioned in any early histories and is regarded by historians as purely a matter of legend. The feast of St. Valentine was first declared to be on February 14 by Pope Gelasius I in 496. There is a widespread legend that he created the day to counter the practice held on Lupercalia of young men and women pairing off as lovers by drawing their names out of an urn, but this practice is not attested in any sources from that era.

In the 19th century, relics of St. Valentine were donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland, which has become a popular place of pilgrimage on February 14.

In 1969, as part of a larger effort to pare down the number of saint days of purely legendary origin, the Church removed St. Valentine's Day as an official holiday from its calendar.

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