February 14

Martyrdom of Valentinus
(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1929, 1989, 1130


St Valentine's Day, which, at least the way we do it, is like Christmas, like Easter, like Halloween, a modern re-invention of the pagan, all food and sexuality, the party-rituals of our preferred religion, Capitalism.

It "started" as a Catholic memorial day, for two martyrs, both named Valentinus, executed by the Emperor Claudius II during the 3rd century, precise years unknown, but allegedly both on the same date. Allegedly, because that day just happened to be the middle of the three-day Lupercal festival in Rome, February 13-15, a fertility rite that took its name from the she-wolf (Lupus in Latin) who suckled the city's twin-founders, Romulus and Remus. How convenient for the Catholic church to find two martyrs with unknown death-dates, and replace the pagan love-rites with the memorial event - Pope Gelasius I in the 5th century the one who attempted that little sleight-of-hand; attempted, but failed, because what else is our contemporary version if not a modernised Lupercalia?

No one even knows why the two (and it may even have been three) Valentines were martyred, but possibly for helping Christians escape prison, possibly for getting married in defiance of a Claudian prohibition against conscripts having wives. The day's other name-bearers are mildly more interesting – three Roman Emperors and a matinée idol.

Valentinian I was the heir of Julian, the last of the Hellenic emperors before Christianity conquered Rome. What Julian fought and died to keep – the vast unity of the Roman Empire – Valentinian simply shared out with his brother Valens, splitting east and west into Byzantium and Rome, and engendering the fall. (And speaking of Julian, and in a moment of Juliana too, there was also, of course, Julius, whose actions mirrored Valentinian's, bringing to an end the era of the Hellenic Republic, incipiting the Roman Empire - see tomorrow’s date, February 15, for more on that).

Valentinian II, his second son, followed him in 375, ruled for twenty years, left his mother Juliana to do the work for seventeen of those years, and then got himself murdered almost immediately afterwards. A prince of nobodies.

Valentinian III, grand-nephew of the II, was even worse, allowing his mother twenty-five years of unchallenged power, and the eunuch Heraclius the five years that followed her death. He personally stabbed and murdered General Aetius as a way of celebrating victory over Attila the Hun; then raped the wife of Maximus and died at the aggrieved husband's hand. 

Is that a wolf he's holding? Did he know about the Lupercalia?
The only one of these four Valentines to have the remotest imperial qualities was the red-nosed Rudolph, whose death at the age of only 31 prompted mourning and funeral rites on a national scale such as had not been seen since Lincoln, and would not be seen again until J.F. Kennedy. I have always thought that the best thing about him – I never did go for those sultry, boyish looks – was his full name, worthy of a man whose "Daydreams" show that he was a far better actor than poet: Rodolpho Alphonso Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonquolla a Castellaneta. A name fit for those other Roman Emperors, the Popes.
So there you have it, St Valentine’s Day, a day for mummy's boys, for fops and eunuchs, for rapists and cuckolds, for effeminate film-stars and for failures in general. Oh, and massacres as well. Ain't that right, Mr Capone?
Much more on the Lupercalia on February 15



1989

I cannot resist a second entry for this date, a memorial service held at the Greek Cathedral of St Sophia in London's Bayswater, to honour the writer Bruce Chatwin, who had died on the 18th of the previous month, and been cremated on its 29th. Among the congregation was his friend and rival Salman Rushdie (rival because both had been shortlisted for the previous year's Booker Prize, but lost to Peter Carey's "Oscar and Lucinda"). This was Rushdie's last public outing as a free man. That same morning the fatwa against him was published. 

Chatwin also appears on his birthday, which is May 13; on Aug 17 as a whimsical poem; and on Dec 5 as a whimsical idea.



1130

When a Pope is elected by his senior Cardinals (a maximum of 120, and all must be under the age of 80), a plume of white smoke egresses from the chimney atop the Vatican, and then the senior cardinal deacon announces "Habemus Papam" - "We have a Pope" - from the balcony of St Peter's. There have been a total of 266 Popes, at the time of updating this page (2024) though this number is equivocal, because several ruled simultaneously during a schism, and several others were regarded as anti-Popes. But surely none was less likely, none less predictable, none more surprising to the populace gathered in front of St Peter's, than the one announced today, February 14th 1130. 

Pope Honorius II had died the day before, and an urgently summoned meeting of certain of the cardinals decided to break with custom and entrust the election to a commission of eight men, led by the Papal Chancellor Haimeric, whose favoured candidate, Cardinal Gregory Papareschi, was immediately elected as Pope Innocent II, and his election announced. 

The other cardinals were furious, and refused to support what was effectively a coup d'état. They met in the proper manner, and chose the son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful senatorial families of Rome, one, that is to say, who had the means and the local support to defend himself against the counter-Pope. His name was Cardinal Pietro Pierleone, and he took the nomenclature Pope Analectus II. A worthy choice, if a surprising one - he had studied theology in Paris before becoming a monk at Cluny, was appointed a Cardinal by Paschal II in 1116 and accompanied Gelasius II when he fled to France. All good credentials. But... what made him such a surprising choice was not simply the fact that another Pope had only hours earlier been announced, but the rather unusual biographical detail, that Pietro Pierleone was understood to have been born a Jew.

Those of you who would like to know what happened to him afterwards, click here.


Amber pages:
Frederick Douglass, born today in 1817; one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement, the principal black speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society, and later adviser to President Lincoln during the Civil War.
(see also Feb 9 and August 14)



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