History of Valentine's Day

As is apparent in advertising, popular culture, and bedrooms alike, the modern construction of Valentine’s Day undoubtedly revolves around invocations of amorous love. But in a consultation of various internet resources, we can identify no definitive explanation for the glut of DeBeers ads and restaurant reservations occurring in the second week in February. Yet many websites do in fact agree that the genesis of Valentine’s Day begins in Roman times.

Wikipedia, which has established itself as a sort of, if not the ultimate standard-bearer of non-scholarly internet based knowledge, postulates that Valentine’s day may have grew out of an ancient fertility holiday celebrated every February 15^th called Lupercalia. This holiday, as Plutarch, a Roman historian, tells us, featured young men walking naked in the streets, and young women would approach them and be smacked on the hands that they might become fertile. This holiday may have grown out of a tradition celebrating the birth of Romulus and Remus, according to legend the twin brothers raised by a wolf who founded Rome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine's_Day.

Suite 101.com, a website that claims “7 million readers a month,” also supposes the Lupercalia theory, but adds that one part of the practice included sacrifices of goats and dogs to the gods. Suite 101 also maintains that in the fifth century, the Catholic church translated the formerly pagan holiday, which remained popular with ordinary Romans, into a Christian context, honoring the Virgin Mary and making it a popular day for marrying young couples. Suite 101 seems plausible, as it does claim that it gathered its information from the Oxford University Press Dictionary of Religion and the University of Chicago’s Penelope Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. http://roman-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_lupercalia_a_roman_festival.

The History Channel offers a completely different explanation, saying that an early Christian priest named Valentine offered to marry young couples in secret, against a decree of the emperor, who dissolved all marriages in an attempt to get more soldiers for the army. Valentine was placed in prison for this, and subsequently fell in love with his jailor’s daughter, to whom he penned a note, “From your Valentine.” http://www.history.com/minisites/valentine/viewPage?pageId=882 In fairness, however, the HC does offer the alternate explanation that the church did try to Christianize the Lupercalia.

As a survey of numerous websites will illustrate, the history of Valentine’s day does in fact credibly trace its origins to the Lupercalian myth and the subsequent Christianization. Yet not every website does this. For instance, Wikipedia’s explanation does not omit that Valentine’s Day is named after two potential early Christian martyrs, but never definitively discusses how or why these names became attached to the holiday, as Suite101 and HC do.

Generally, this experience revealed the inconsistency of historical information on the Internet. Because each user can function in relative anonymity and slick graphics can misleadingly function as a substitute for substantive content. This process was in a sense discouraging. So many websites had varying explanations, and were often poorly written For instance, on a Google search of “History of Valentine’s Day,” the third link leads to a UK website which offers four very different theses on the origin of Valentine’s day. Not only is the website’s legitimacy completely undercut by a pink color scheme, usually reserved for all things germane to a pre-pubescent teenage girl, but each account is anonymously authored. Furthermore, if the user accessed the address of only the text before the host country domain name in the web address http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm, it redirects to a British picture frame store. How in the world is this site supposed to maintain any semblance of accuracy? Ultimately, information on the internet has to be weighed against several criteria, most importantly if it is cited in a scholarly book or not. While Wikipedia does have many articles that are thoroughly cited, many other articles are not. In the future, we can hope for the internet community to give these articles some legitimacy, and in the process hopefully deliver a death blow to other, less accurate sites.

History Website Review

The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook is a reference website, hosted by Fordham University, which provides information about ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Persia, Greece, Rome, Late Antiquity (ca. 300-600 A.D.). and early Christian writers via both primary and secondary source material. The site was conceived of in 1999, and its stated goal is to, "provide and organize texts for use in classroom situations." http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/asbook.html#Introduction. However, I have found this site very valuable while researching my senior thesis, as it does feature partial texts, whole texts, and guidance to scholarly resources. Originally conceived of by Paul Halsall, a professor at Fordham University, the website is the preeminent resource for educational material related to the ancient world on the Internet.

The website is broken into the categories mentioned above, with each category broken down into more precise themes, for instance, under "Rome," there is "Roman Law," "The Army," "Empires and Provinces," and many other categories, with primary sources for each theme listed. http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/asbook09.html.

One fringe feature of the site is a section devoted to "Ancient History in the Movies," which lists and critiques for historical accuracy a number of movies set in the ancient world. This page links to IMDB, which is a great website to link to for getting a second opinion on the movies.

The "Help" Page is also valuable, offering a myriad of websites for evaluating history websites on the internet, a list of writing and citation guides, and other history websites which are valuable for looking at.

What makes this website so good is undoubtedly the presentation of primary sources. While not trying to be the definitive compendium for knowledge of antiquity on the Internet, it often comes off feeling that way anyway. For instance, it does offer 9 complete texts of major Roman historians, including Tacitus, Livy, and Caesar. In the Ancient Greece section, Herodotus, Thucydides, and others are represented. In an age in which classical learning is almost vanished compared to previous generations, it is refreshing to consider the wealth of knowledge about the ancient world available to us at our fingertips.

Yet despite the vast amount of red meat learning on the Ancient History Internet Sourcebook website, it is neglecting on presentation. It is obvious that the site is made by an amateur, Halsall, and nobody has bothered to remedy that. The lone pictorial graphic on the website is a cheap, clip-art picture of Ionic columns flanking the "Internet Ancient History Sourcebook" heading. The entire site is blue and black text on an off-white background, and Times New Roman font.

Navigating the site is easy enough, but should be better. A sidebar sits on the left side of the page, directing the user to the different topics of study he or she is interested in. Once the user accesses the main topic (e.g. Rome, Egypt, etc.), the subtopics are presented in outline format, which is good, but then once clicking the relevant link it merely scrolls down the page to the subtopic of interest, and the featured sources open in a new page. The result is that with everything bundled together the user feels somewhat overwhelmed. This site is in desperate need of an overhaul. The lack of color, art, and graphics, as well as a subpar yet valiant attempt at organization certainly detract from this site. Moreover, there is no content such as message boards, quote of the day, videos, etc. to keep the user coming back. If I didn't have to use this website, I would have no reason to return. This is unfortunate, because it offers such an excellent array of neglected knowledge that has potential to gain a wider audience.

History Website Review