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AN ANCIENT ROMAN FESTIVAL is often thought to be the intriguing predecessor of Valentine's Day. Known as "Lupercalia", it was generally held over February 13-15, and signified a time of purification, good health and fertility, for those who observed it.
Historians' attempts to trace when and why Lupercalia came to be first celebrated have tended to go in circles, but there is some consensus on what the customs associated with the festival may have entailed, and that worship of the god Lupercus (the Roman version of the Greek Pan) was involved.
Lupercalia would begin with the sacrificing of two male goats and a dog, at the cave of Lupercal. (This was the site where the abandoned infant twins — Romulus and Remus, whose later adventures led to the founding of Rome — were discovered, being nursed by a she-wolf.) Two among the priests participating in the ritual would be required to step forward: their foreheads were smeared with the blood from the sacrifice, which was then wiped off with wool soaked in milk. Simultaneously, Vestal Virgins (priestesses from the temple of Vesta) would offer cakes/wafers made of salted meal [more on those later], at the altar of Lupercus.
Image: Salted cake
After a feast for the gathered party, thongs were cut from the hide of the sacrificed animals and groups of priests would run in a frenzy through the neighbouring areas, whipping any passersby they encountered. Several women would deliberately arrange to be in the path of these priests; they believed that an expectant mother would have an easier birth, and that a childless wife would conceive, if touched by the whip.
Some texts claim that there was another custom followed during Lupercalia: pieces of paper bearing the names of young women would be placed in a jar. They would couple up — for the duration of the festival, and sometimes longer — with the young men who drew their names. This pagan dating ritual may have led to the association of Lupercalia with love (and later, Valentine's Day), these accounts theorise. However, there isn't solid evidence to bolster such claims.
LUPERCALIA WASN'T THE ONLY MAJOR ROMAN FESTIVAL IN FEBRUARY
Its dates overlapped with that for another important holiday — the 10 or 13-day-long Fornacalia, dedicated to the goddess of ovens, Fornax, and meant to celebrate the baking of bread.
Remember those salted mealcakes the Vestal Virgins were offering up to Lupercus? Well those were a very important part of Fornacalia. Families would buy spelt (a type of wheat/grain) and present it as a sacrifice to Fornax, to ensure any bread baked in their homes during the year would not burn. This offering was known as mola salsa (which roughly translates to salted millet).
Image: Spelt
For the mola salsa, the spelt was soaked in water overnight, and roasted in the oven the next morning. It was pulverised with a mortar and pestle, then mixed with sea salt, and kneaded into dough with a little water. Wafers or 'cakes' would then be baked with this salted meal.
BACK TO LUPERCALIA: IT MAY NOT HAVE HAD A DIRECT RELATION TO VALENTINE'S DAY
While some theorise that Pope Gelasius, disapproving of the pagan practice of Lupercalia, replaced with a feast honouring St. Valentine of Rome (a priest martyred for helping persecuted Christians), it may simply be a case of coincidence than an actual swap. As for how an executed priest became a symbol of love, that's a convoluted story for another day, involving a poem by Chaucer, a royal wedding, an imprisoned French duke writing verses to his wife from his gaol, and at least two other saints/priests also named Valentine.
SOME ROMAN BELIEFS PERSISTED IN VALENTINE'S DAY OBSERVANCES ELSEWHERE
The Romans introduced leeks to Wales, and the Welsh people came to believe that if an unmarried woman slept with a leek under her pillow on Valentine's Day, she would dream of her future husband. There is an Old English variation of this same belief, where the woman must sleep with five bay leaves under her pillow instead of a leek to be visited by a vision of her prospective spouse.
