A minor day in an ancient calendar full of festivals

People lived according to the ceremonial or liturgical year in medieval times. Many festivals in the religious calendar tracked seasonal changes as well, such as the darkest or lightest time of the year, the planting or harvesting of crops, the use of stored food, or the times when people were required to tighten their belts during periods of shortage.

There is little known about St Valentine, who was martyred in February. It’s not clear if the Valentine mentioned by John Gower or Geoffrey Chaucer is the same Valentine. The first English poets associated the feast of St Valentine with bird mating instincts.

Valentine’s Day was not celebrated as a major festival in medieval times.

Candlemas

St Valentine’s Day is not the most important event of February as the British high-street retailers would like us to believe. Candlemas, or, in its correct name, the Feast of the Purification of the Holy Virgin Mary, was the biggest event of February. It commemorates the 40-day period after Christ’s birth when his mother brought her child into the temple.

Before hearing mass, each parishioner took part in a solemn procession with candles before offering a penny to the church. It is unclear how people spent the remainder of this Day off work. However, records from other religious holidays show that singing, dancing, and playing games were common forms of entertainment. Candlemas was a popular holiday despite its secular distractions. It celebrated spiritual renewal by bringing Christ’s light into the dark winter months. Candlemas marked the end of winter and was a time to celebrate spiritual renewal. The priest blessed candle stubs that people then carried around. They believed they would protect them from harm and ward off any evil for the remainder of the year.

Shrovetide

Shrovetide was a festival which has echoes in our lives today. It is a period of carnival before Lent, that ran between Septemberuagesima Monday and Shrove Wednesday – also known as Pancake Day or Mardi Gras. Shrovetide, which was also popular, was a time to have fun before the strict rules of Lent began. These included dietary restrictions, prohibitions on marriage and sex, and a period when the fasting and recreation were prohibited.

Shrovetide was the second most popular celebration after the 12 Days of Christmas. It featured excessive eating, drinking, dancing and games. People also enjoyed watching plays and playing football, as well as enjoying raucous entertainments.

Wood carving depicting two young boys playing ball at Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester Cathedral, CC BY

It also served a practical purpose. It allowed people to prepare for Lent mentally and physically at a time of shortage. Carnival was also a way to release the frustrations that winter brought. Shrovetide, which takes its name from the act shriving, or confessing, sins, captures the essence of the medieval calendar, absorbing, governing and giving meaning to daily life.

To everything a Season

There were also many other holidays or holy days that provided occasions to celebrate. Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost were the main religious holidays, which balanced penitential fasting with merriment, gift-giving, and time off from work. The outdoor celebrations in early May and the summer were also important to people, resulting in secular rituals like “Maying”, (collecting blossoms, dancing around a Maypole etc), Mummings, and different forms of secular or religious plays. These events took advantage of spring and summer, when the warmer weather allowed people to celebrate the seasons of growth and rebirth.

The liturgical calendar was a complex system of seasonal rhythms that remained constant in England until the Reformation. This is when the celebration of saints’ Day and the events of the temporal year were changed. It is no surprise that some Catholic feasts like Valentine’s Day and Shrove Tuesday, as well as Halloween (All Hallows Eve), survived the Reformation and are still part of our cultural calendar. This issue brings us back to St Valentine.

Be My Valentine

In the Middle Ages, the celebration of Valentine’s Day was expanded to include human lovers who expressed their love in hopes of attracting a partner or reaffirming an existing relationship. Margery Brews sent John Paston the oldest known “Valentine in English, referring to him as her “rightwelbelouyd Voluntyn” (lovely lover) in February 1477. Brews was being married to Paston at the time, but Paston wasn’t happy with the amount of dowry that her parents offered.