Candlemas and Valentine's Day via Christmas

We've long believed that only the gentleman that puts this on to the website ever reads it, but a call came from a radio station, to tell us that a listener claimed we were wrong in stating on the website that 12 th Night was on January 5th and suggested that we should hear the reasons. We listened as the expert explained to us that because of the calendar changes and the loss of days, the Christmas festivities were originally pagan festivals that started in mid January and extended to Candlemas, 2nd February.

There is little doubt that the church ‘adopted' some of the old pagan festival days as a useful way of weaning folk off their pagan ways and into religion, and Christmas with its twelve days was one of them.

Mithraism was the great rival to Christianity during the late Roman period and the great winter feast of the Mithraic religion was the celebrations for the day of the birth of the Unconquered Sun. No prizes for guessing the date.

The northern festival of Yuletide had many similarities and, in colder climate the getting together of people to enjoy warmth and good cheer around the yule log began at the start of what the Anglo-Saxons deemed their new year. No prizes for guessing the date.

At a bleak time of the year the festivities were a holiday from toil, an extended holiday.

The early church didn't celebrate Christ's birthday. It wasn't until the fourth century that Christmas was officially established as a feast of the church by Julius I, Bishop of Rome, though it had been celebrated earlier.

It may have been by sheer co-incidence that in Anglo-Saxon England the festival slotted into the new year festivities and also coincided with the Mithraic unconquered sun celebration.

The twelve days are not found in the Yule, Mithraic or Anglo-Saxon celebrations but they are a feature of the Christian ones.

Allow for the days lost from the calendar and there is no possibility of the twelve days of Christmas, a truly Christian festival, extending to Candlemas.

Candlemas was a party day for Romans who honoured the goddess of the month – Februa, on February 1 st .

Brand has a good explanation for Candlemas becoming February 2nd . How this candle-bearing on Candlemas Day came first up, the author of our English Festival declareth in this manner:

" Somtyme," said he, "when the Romaines by great myght and royal power conquered all the world, they were so proude, that they forgat God, and made them divers gods after their own lust. And so among all they had a god that they called Mars, that had been tofore a notable knight in battayle; and so they prayed to hym for help, and for that they would speed the better of this knight, the people prayed and did great worship to his mother, that was called Februa, after which woman much people have opinion that the moneth February is called. Wherefore the second daic of thys moneth is Candlemass Day. The Romaines this night went about the city of Rome with torches and candles brenning in worship of this woman Februa, for hope to have the more helpe and succoure of her sonne Mars.

Then there was a Pope that was called Sergius, and when he saw Christian people drawn to this false maumetry and untrue belief, he thought to undo this foule use and custom, and turn it into God's worship and our Lady's, and gave commandment that all Christian people should come to church and offer up a candle brennyng, in the worship that they did to this woman Februa, and do worship to our Lady and to her sonne our Lord Jesus Christ. So that now this feast is solemnly hallowed thorowe all Christendome. And every Christian man and woman of covenable - age is bound to come to church and offer up their candles, as though they were bodily with our Lady, hopying for this reverence and worship, that they do to our Lady, to have a great rewarde in heaven."

In some parts of the country, Scotland particularly, Candlemas has assumed a secular garb by becoming the first of the quarterly terms; and in Cornwall old customs of a slightly different character are kept up.

Christmas and its twelve days was not introduced by the church to cover over extended pagan festivities. It slotted into them, but never covered them.

The Eve of the Christ Mass indicates clearly where the Christian Festival begins, and the following day, Christ Mass Day is the first of the twelve days of a Christian festival that defied calendar changes to maintain a date, 25th December as we know it, not a pagan period.

Well, that leaves no room for early February so we'll skip along a little to look on a day that many people still love..

Mid February folklore generally brings love to mind, particularly since the association of the feast for the 3rd century martyr, Valentine with wooing or courting. Two Valentines are listed in the Roman Martyrology on February 14th , one a Roman priest martyred on the Flaminian Way , the other, a bishop of Terni , martyred at Rome . Many consider them to one and the same person but, whether one or two, the stories related to them do not include lovers or courting couples.

Step back in history and it was February 15th that was once a Roman festival of love, Lupercalia, that the Roman invaders brought with them to these shores. In their homeland it was celebrated at Lupercal, where the wolf Lupus suckled the founders of Rome , Romulus and Remus, and the wearing of animal hides, from goats or dogs sacrificed to the fertile god Lupercus, became the fashion of the day.

Rome 's ancient custom was dying out by the time of Julius Caesar, but he revived it, and presented the early church with a dilemma.

A new Christian feast was needed and while there was little to link Valentine with love and courtship, he filled a need, especially when the far more ancient tradition of sharing a love token was encouraged as part of his festival. Tokens, and particularly the romantic ring, was associated with marriage in ancient Egypt , Greece , Rome , and almost every early civilisation.

The scene was set to turn out lewd Lupercalian frolics and replace them with sensitive scenes of love-token sharing; courtesy of Valentine.

Said to have defied the ruling of Claudius II, that soldiers could not marry because sex starved their strength, Valentine conducted illicit Christian marriages and in doing so assumed the mantle of the protector of lovers.

If he was in love with his gaoler's daughter during his incarceration and whether or not she received a farewell Valentine message from him before he met his death, is a matter of speculation but, even if his ‘day' was used to smother the Lupercalian festival, it would be nice to think that he was able to confirm his love for her and she was the first to receive a valentine card.

There is an alternative to the Valentine code for lovers, or at least birds of a feather.

That birds are said to choose their mates on February 14th was familiar at least to Chaucer in the 14 th century. It was he that wrote, in his ‘Parlement of Fowles;'

‘For thys was on seynt Valentynes day
When every foul cometh there to chese hys mayte.'

That occasional day, February 29th has much to do with the old calendar and the 0.0078 days that crept in without being dealt with until great chunks were torn from 1752 to the consternation of the people of the time and the confusion of most that came after them.

A matter for next month, perhaps?

© Roy & Ursula Radford