The Feast of Lupercalia

The month of February is the season of purification and the celebration of light which has its roots in ancient fertility festivals.

The Feast of Lupercalia was an ancient purification festival thought to be of pre-Roman origin, subsuming the earlier Februa, a cleansing ritual held around the same date each spring, from which the name of the month of February is derived. A pagan fertility festival celebrated on 15th February, in which the names of young women were placed in a box and then drawn by men, Lupercalia is thought to have been the precursor of St Valentines Day.

In antiquity Lupercalia was thought to be connected to the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia, (from the Ancient Greek 'lykos' meaning 'wolf') and the worship of Lycaean Pan, the Greek horned god of shepherds and flocks. The Lykaia was an archaic festival performed on the slopes of Mount Lykaion, the 'Wolf Mountain' in Arcadia, the primary seat of Pan where his worship began. The secret rituals and myths of this primitive festival has long been associated with werewolves.

In Roman mythology Lupercus (derived from the Latin 'lupus' meaning 'one who fends off the wolf'), like the Greek Pan, is the protector of cattle, the god of shepherds, and often identified with one of the oldest Roman deities, Faunus, the horned god of the forest and plains, who came from Arcadia, who's festivals were known as the Faunalia. The festival of Lupercus, the Lupercalia, is celebrated on 15th February the anniversary of the founding of his temple in which the priests wore goatskins reflecting the near nakedness of the god except for his goatskin girdle. Members of Lupercali would gather in the sacred cave at the foot of the Palatine Hill in Rome, between the Temple of Apollo Palatinus and the Basilica of Santa Anastasia, where Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf (lupa) was known as the Lupercal, where, on the Ides of February, a goat and a dog were sacrificed and Vestal Virgins prepared salt meal-cakes. Youths would then cut the goatskin into strips and run through the streets of Rome clad in animal skin, impersonating male goats, any women slapped with the goatskin were considered to have been touched with the gift of fertility.

The name of the month February was derived from the Latin term februum, meaning 'purification'. The Romans celebrated Februa (Februatio), the festival of ritual purification, around 15th February. According to Ovid, Februare, a Latin word which refers to means of purification by bathing or washing with water, derives from an earlier Etruscan word referring to purging. The later Roman god Februus personified the month of purification, February thus named for the festival. Later the festival, possibly influenced by the Greek festival Lykaia as stated above, became known as Lupercalia.

This time of year was also an important calendar marker to pre-Celtic people of North-Western Europe who built some of their megalithic structures aligned to the rising sun of both Imbolc and its opposite festival of Samhain.

In the Celtic calendar, this period of the year became known as Imbolc one of the four principal festivals of the pagan year. It can be celebrated either at the beginning of February or at the first local signs of Spring but in the northern hemisphere it is usually celebrated on the 1st February, this ancient festival marking the mid point of winter, half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Imbolc, and this date in particular, is strongly associated with the goddess Brigid; 1st February being the Feast day of the Christian St Brigid. Imbolc is associated with the pregnancy of ewes and ewe's milk, Brigid is often depicted milking a cow.

The 2nd February is also associated with the Christian feast of Candlemas marking the end of the season of Epiphany. Candlemas is also known as "The Festival of Lights", the lighting of candles and fires representing the increasing power of the sun after the long, dark winter. Drawing on some elements of pagan festivals, initiation and purification again being an important aspect of this festival.

Candlemas commemorates the ritual purification of Mary, 40 days after the birth of her son Jesus. At the end of this time, women were brought to the Temple to be purified and after the ceremony were allowed again to participate in religious services. Candlemas is the day that all the Church's candles for the year were blessed and on Candlemas night, people would place lighted candles in their windows at home.

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The Feast of Saint Valentine

On 14th February, in the days of Emperor Claudius II, the priest Valentino was executed in Rome. Valentine was martyred and named a saint after his death.

Valentine's story starts in Rome under the rule of Claudius, also known as “Claudius Gothicus”, who was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having difficulty recruiting soldiers to his military forces. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families. To solve this problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realising the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.

This is witnessed by the discovery of the bodies of two young lovers in a perfectly preserved sarcophagus, the inscription revealing the marriage of Sabino, a pagan Roman soldier and Serapia, a Christian girl from Terni, by Saint Valentine in defiance of the emperor which has become the centrepiece of the legend of Saint Valentine of Terni.

Basilica di San Valentino, Terni, Italy. The Basilica was begun in the 17th century and completed in 1854. Today couples from many places come to Terni every February 14 to take or renew their marriage vows.

When Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death and beheaded. The priest's execution was carried out on 14th February, on or about the year 270.

Legends vary on how the martyr's name became connected with romance, but it also said that while in jail, Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine."

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the 15th Century Nuremberg Chronicle, alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II. Various dates being given for the martyrdom: 269, 270, or 273 AD. The flower crowned skull of St Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.

In truth, the exact origins and identity of St. Valentine are unclear. He does not occur in the earliest list of Roman martyrs, compiled by the Chronographer of 354, a 4th Century illuminated manuscript also known as the Calendar of 354. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14 February." One was a priest in Rome, the second one was a bishop of Terni and the third St. Valentine was a martyr in the Roman province of Africa.

Saint Valentine, left, Christ , centred, and Saint Zeno, Mosaic from Chapel of S. Zeno, Basilica di San Prassede, Rome, resting in an arch above the niche containing a piece of the Pillar of Flagellation.

The trail to this elusive saint leads to the Basilica di San Prassede, in Rome, where he is found in one of the few surviving Byzantine mosaics in Rome. The northernmost gate to the city, the Porta del Popolo, is the place where Saint Valentine was beheaded, the gate was later renamed the Porta Valentini to commemorate this moment. The remains of the original Basilica di San Valentino are about a kilometre outside the gate, from which three entrances lead into the rock of the hill and the catacombs of Saint Valentine.

Remains of Basilica of San Valentino and Entrances to Catacombs of Saint Valentine

The date of his death may have become mingled with the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of love held around the same time. On these occasions, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The Feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 AD by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God” thus bringing an end to the Feast of Lupercalia declaring that 14th February be celebrated as St Valentine's Day.

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Saint Eulalia

Doesn't the rich pomp of marriage move you,
Nor your respect for the love of the old
Whom in your rashness you're so casting down?
See here the instruments fully prepared,
Things of unbearable torture and death:

Either your head will be lopped by a sword,
Or will your limbs be dismembered by beasts,
Or, given over to smoke-reeking brands,
Object for weeping and wailing of kin,
You'll be destroyed and reduced into ash.

What, pray, the toil to escape from all this?
If a small portion of salt, my dear maid,
And tiny grain of the incense with your
Fingertips you'd be so kind as to touch,
Penalties grievous would be far away'.

Nothing said martyr to this; but in fact
Bellowed with rage and in potentate's eye
Spittle she flung, then the images she
Scattered; the meal that was there to comprise
Thuribles full, she upset with her foot.

Straight away then, executioners twain
Tore at the flesh of her rush-slender breasts.
Then did the claw at her maidenly flanks
Strike on both sides as it cut to the bone.
Meanwhile Eulalia counted the marks.

'See how your name's written on me, O Lord.
How it delights me these letters to read,
Which are the mark of your victories, O Christ!
And to speak your holy name for itself
Here is the red of my blood that's been drawn'.

These words, with never a tear or a groan,
Joyful and all unafraid did she sing;
Torment so dreadful did not reach her soul.
Coloured by fresh flow of blood too, her limbs
Bathed her fair skin in its warm-running stream.

Final refinement of torture came now.
No longer wounds for the tearing of flesh,
Nor skin that's ploughed to the depth of the ribs,
But there is flame from the lampstands all round
Raging against her at stomach and flanks.

Sweet-smelling tresses all over her neck
Fell to her shoulders as light as a veil,
So that her modesty, bashful and shy,
Might be concealed with her maidenhood's grace
Under the cover of screen from her poll.

Flame with a roar made a rush for her face
And, brought to life by her hair, to her head
Transferred its hold, rearing over its top.
Maid, in her wish for a swift end to life,
Swallowed and drank from the fire with her mouth.

Thereupon suddenly flashed forth a dove
Whiter than snow, from the martyred girl's mouth
Seen to depart and to make for for the stars:
This was the spirit of Eulalia,
Milky-white swift-darting, quite without sin.

Drooped was her neck as her soul sped away;
Down died the fiery blaze of the pyre.
Peace was imparted to those lifeless limbs,
While in the sky flapped triumphant applause
Soul, as it winged to the regions on high.

Even the minion himself saw the bird
Openly pass from the mouth of the girl;
Thoroughly stunned and amazed at the sight,
He leaped and fled from the deeds he had done.
Even the lictor fled off in alarm.

She how the icy-cold winter poured snow
Down on the forum and covered it all;
Covered as well poor Eulalia's limbs
Lying exposed to the cold of the sky,
Taking the place of a small linen cloak. [1]

The moving story of Eulalia of Mérida, a Roman Christian child martyred in Emerita, the capital of Lusitania, modern day Mérida in Spain, tortured and burned to death during the persecution of Christians in the reign of emperor Diocletian, on 10th December, 304 AD, is aptly portrayed by the the Spanish-Roman poet Prudentius of the fifth century who devoted Book III of his Peristephanon to Eulalia.

Often confused with Saint Eulalia of Barcelona, who was martyred on 12th February of the same year. The confusion is possibly due to a poem published by Bishop Quiricus of Barcelona in the seventh century, on the Barcelonan Eulalia, that was identical with Prudentius' work. It is quite possible of course that the two saints are actually one and the same character.

Eulalia was a devout Christian virgin, aged 12–14, whose mother kept her impounded in the countryside because in 304 AD all citizens were required to avow their faith to the Roman gods. Eulalia ran away to governor Dacian's court at Emerita and confessed her faith on her own initiative, professed herself a Christian, insulted the pagan gods and the emperor Maximian, challenging the Roman authorities to martyr her. They duly obliged.

She was stripped by two soldiers and tortured for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods, her tormentors tearing her body with iron hooks, and holding flames to her breasts and sides until she suffocated from the smoke. She taunted her torturers throughout the ordeal and at the moment she gave up her last breath a dove flew out of her mouth. Legend says that when she was thrown naked into the street, snow fell to cover her; later when her ashes were dumped in a field, snow fell on them to create a burial pall.

By 350 AD veneration of Eulalia was already popular with Christians following the erection of a shrine over her tomb. Prudentius' poem increased her renown and relics from her were distributed throughout Iberia. In 560 AD Bishop Fidelis of Mérida rebuilt a basilica in her honour, her shrine becoming the most popular in Visigothic Spain. Her body was transferred to Oviedo by King Silo in the eighth century . Saint Eulalia now lies in a coffin of Arab silver donated by Afonso VI in 1075 AD.

The painting Saint Eulalia, by John William Waterhouse, 1885, part of the Tate Britain collection, tactfully avoids the cruel disfigurement of her torture and presents a dignified yet moving scene of her final moment; her cold body laying lifeless as snow starts to fall to cover her exposed body. Taken together with the dark, gruesome poem by Prudentius, it presents a moving portrayal of her ordeal. Immediately after the painting was displayed Waterhouse was elected an associate of the Royal Academy.

Notes:
1. Excerpted from 'Panting for God': a version of Prudentius, Peristephanon Liber III - ("About Martyrs") translated by Robert J. Baker, Electronic Antiquity Vol. 1 Issue 3 - August 1993 [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ElAnt/V1N4/baker.html]

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