pocket money pictures
original art at affordable prices
January 25, 2012
Saint Valentine’s day: A brief history.
St Valentine is believed to have lived in Rome in the third century AD, when that city was under the rule of Emperor Claudius ll. Claudius was struggling at that time to recruit officers for his army and believed that the reluctance of young men to leave their wives was the cause. So he went to the remarkable lengths of banning marriage. However, the Christian priest Valentine held secret marriage ceremonies, but when discovered was martyred on February 14th 269 AD.
This particular day in February also had significance in the pagan calendar during that period, being the eve of the festival of “Lupercalia”, or “Wolf Festival”, an early springtime fertility celebration in honour of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. During this period of Roman history the lives of young boys and girls were kept strictly segregated. However, one of the customs of the young people was “name drawing”. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl’s name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose.
As so often happens in the early days of Christianity many pagan feast days were hijacked by the priests in Rome for the benefit of their new religion. These priests endeavoured to do away with the heathen element in these festivals and dedicate them to Christian saints. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the priests appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s Day for the celebration of their new feast. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.
January 24, 2012
Proper pictures for proper people.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/billphilpot
Notice that it’s the guy who’s sitting down.
pocket money pictures 