From Candlemas to Valentine’s Day

08 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in 16th-century France, Art, Calendar, Love

Tags

Carnival season, Chaucer, Easter, Februarius, Februus, Ides of February, Lupercalia, Purification, Simeon's Song of Praise, the Vernal Equinox

Simeon’s Song of Praise by Rembrandt, 1631 (WikiArt.org)

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day, la Saint-Valentin, is approaching. My best wishes to all of you.

The Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in CE 496 to be celebrated on 14 February in honour of Saint Valentine of Rome who died on that date in CE 269. The day became associated with romantic love in the 14^th and 15^th centuries when notions of courtly love flourished, apparently by association with the “lovebirds” of early spring.

Candlemas

Candlemas, or Candlemass, also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Feast of the Holy Encounter, is a Christian Holy Day commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. It is based upon the account of the presentation of Jesus in Luke 2:22–40 and has been celebrated since the 4^th century CE. (See Candlemas, Britannica.)

It is reported that Pope Saint Gelasius I (494–96 CE) wanted to replace a “pagan” feast, called Lupercalia (“Lupus” [wolf] and “calida” [warmth]) with a Christian feast. Candlemas would be the new feast, which is celebrated on 2^nd February, 40 days after Christmas, and would commemorate three closely related occasions.

the Purification of the Virgin
the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple of Jerusalem
the Meeting of the Lord, or the Holy Encounter (see Simeon, Gospel of Luke, Wikipedia)

In obedience to Mosaic law, Mary had to be purified 40 days after giving birth, which falls on 2^nd February. Moreover, Mary had to present her firstborn to God. Finally, Simeon, who had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he would see the Messiah before his death, recognized the Messiah. It was Jesus. Having seen Jesus, he said “now we dismiss.” These are the words of a canticle entitled Nunc dimittis.

Candlemas, la Chandeleur, takes places during Carnival season. Carnival is a Christian festivity that starts on Epiphany (6 January) and ends on Ash Wednesday, or the day after Mardi Gras, a day of revelry and merriment. An image inserted below, a drawing or sanguine, depicts a celebration of the Lupercalia occuring at the end of the 16^th century.

Valentine’s Day

Moreover, it has been reported that Pope Gelasius I wanted to suppress the ancient Roman festival of the Lupercalia. The Lupercalia was a festival of fertility and purification which had given its name “dies februatus,” from Februatus, to the month of February. The Lupercalia was not related to the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Candlemas, the new feast. Valentine’s Day used to commemorate a St Valentine, a martyr. The feast took place during the Ides of February.

Chaucer

As a romantic feast, Valentine’s Day was all but invented by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s – 25 October 1400) who called the day “seynt” Valentine’s Day.

Chaucer was a prisoner during the Hundred Years’ War. When he was released, he took to England the French Roman de la Rose, a work of literature that epitomizes courtly love. However, it was an exchange. Charles d’Orléans, who was detained in England for 25 years during the Hundred Years’ War, took to France not only poems he had written referring to Valentine, but also the lore of Valentine’s Day as it existed in England. According to Chaucer, birds mated on 14 February.

In The Parlement of Foules (1382), Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules

[“For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”]

Valentine’s day took place near the Ides of February. We have noted that the degree of lightness and darkness has governed the dates of festivities since the beginning of time. Consequently, Christian festivities would take place at the same time as “pagan” festivities, which they usually replaced, but not altogether. Carnival is a Western Christian festive season ending on Ash Wednesday, the day after Mardi Gras, or on Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday itself.

The Ides of February

The Ides of a month fall on the 15^th day of that month. February being the shortest month, its Ides fell earlier. They fell on approximately the 13^th of February and would include Lupercalia, a word combining the above-mentioned “lupus” and “calida.” (See Lupercalia, Wikipedia.) The better-known Ides are the Ides of March, “the 15^th day of the Roman month of Martius[,]” a day associated with the assassination of Julius Caesar who developed the Julian Calendar. (See The Ides of March, Wikipedia.)

The Gregorian Calendar

There came a point when festivities taking place in February no longer matched the seasons, Easter in particular. Therefore, Pope Gregory XIII replaced the Julian Calendar with the Gregorian calendar. The Gregorian calendar is the better match to the seasons or lightness and darkness. It is based on the Jewish calendar. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582. However, Gregorian Chant (cantus planus, plainsong) does not refer to Pope Gregory XIII. It refers to Pope Gregory I. The day on which Easter is celebrated must be determined every year, hence the adjective “moveable.” Easter matches, more or less, the vernal equinox.

Pope Gregory XIII by Lavinia Fontana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

**The Lupercalian Festival in Rome** (ca. 1578–1610), drawing by the circle of Adam Elsheimer, showing the Luperci dressed as dogs and goats, with Cupid and personifications of fertility. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As noted above, Valentine’s Day’s proper Christian source is the commemoration of a martyr named Valentine. But there is evidence that Lupercalia remains a festivity. (See Beware the Ides of February, Psychology Today.)

In ancient Roman religion, Februus, whose name means “purifier,” was the god of purification and Februarius, the month of February. Epiphanytide ends on Candlemas, but Carnival season continues until the very festive and equinoctial Mardi Gras.

**The Soussa Mosaic**, *Februus* panel from the 3^rd-century mosaic of the months at El Djem, Tunisia (Roman Africa) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

RELATED ARTICLES

Posts on Love Celebrated, Page
Feast & Liturgy, Page

Sources and Resources

Britannica
Wikipedia
La Vraie Histoire de la Saint-Valentin
Beware the Ides of February

Love to everyone 💕

Rachmaninov‘s Nunc dimittis

Twelfth Night & Carnival Season

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Feasts

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Carnival season, Claude Gillot, commedia dell'arte, David Teniers, Epiphany, Galette des Rois, Gâteau des Rois, Greek Komos, Karel Dujardin, Roman Saturnalia, Theophany, Twelfth Night

The Adoration of the Magi, a fresco, Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi by Giotto, c. 1831-32 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paganism & Christianity

As you all know, early Christians transformed Pagan feasts into Christian feasts. It had to do with luminosity, the degree of brightness. Christmas is celebrated on or near the longest night of the year: the Winter solstice.

The Roman Saturnalia

It has long seemed somewhat peculiar that the night should be as long as day. In fact, it has been perceived as a kind of inversion. At that time of the year, Romans therefore celebrated Saturn, “a god of agriculture, but in classical times identified with the Greek Cronus deposed by his son Zeus.”[i] Saturn, as in Saturday, is also the name of a planet.

Traditionally, beginning on Christmas day, the first of the twelve days of Christmas, many things were inverted or reversed, as in the Roman Saturnalia:

“During the twelve days of Christmas, traditional roles were often relaxed, masters waited on their servants, men were allowed to dress as women, and women as men. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas revels. Some of these traditions were adapted from older, pagan customs, including the Roman Saturnalia. Some also have an echo in modern-day pantomime where traditionally authority is mocked and the principal male lead is played by a woman, while the leading older female character, or ‘Dame’ is played by a man.”[ii]

The Greek Kōmos

As for ancient Greece, during that period of the year, a Kōmos, or “ritualistic drunken procession,” was performed by revelers out of a which grew Ancient Greek Comedy. Doubts subsist as to the origin of comedy, but it appears to be the Kōmos. (See Kōmos, Wikipedia)

Four Gentlemen and Pierrot, by Claude Gillot (Wikimedia)

Four Commedia dell’arte Figures by Claude Gillot (French; 1673 – 1722) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Karel Dujardin, Commedia dell'Arte show, 1657 (Louvre).

Karel Dujardin (Dutch; 1622 – 1678), Commedia dell’arte show, 1657 (Louvre). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comedy

Comedy is a reversal. The wise old man (the senex) is transformed into a senex iratus called alazôn in theatre of ancient Greece, the heavy father intent on marrying his daughter, or son, to a person he has chosen. At the end of the comedy, after a series of péripéties (twists and turns), the young couple, assisted by the eirôn, overcome the blocking character, the senex iratus or alazôn, and may marry.

Such is the basic plot of the commedia dell’arte, improvised plays on the same plot, called canevas in French. In the commedia dell’ arte, the characters are stock characters or archetypes. Seventeenth-century French dramatist Molière (15 January 1622 – 17 February 1673) wrote farces, short plays such as the Précieuses ridicules (The Pretentious Young Ladies), using the plot of the deceiver deceived or trompeur trompé. However, the Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Middle-Class Gentleman), a five-act comédie-ballet, is also built on the trompeur trompé formula: a reversal.

William Shakespeare‘s (26 April 1564 [baptised] – 23 April 1616) Twelfth Night, a comedy, was written to be performed on the eve (5 January) of Epiphany (6 January), the most festive of the twelve days of Christmas: its culmination. Twelfth Night ushers in the carnival season, which begins on 7 January and ends on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi gras, the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent (le carême).

Peter Paul Rubens‘ Death of Semele, caused by the theophany of Zeus [Saturn] without a mortal disguise (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Epiphany and Theophany

Epiphany is celebrated on 6 January in the Western church and it commemorates the arrival in Bethlehem of the Magi (the wise men): Melchior, Balthasar and Gaspar. They came from the east bearing gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Phrase of Fable, “the Epiphany [is] the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles [non-Jewish] as represented by the Magi[.]”[iii] The word epiphany is also used to denote a moment of revelation.

As for Theophany, as its name suggests (theo = god), it is a revelation of the divine. Theophanies are an ancient phenomenon. Many occur in the Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic dating back to the 18th century BCE. The word theophany is the origin of the name Tiffany.

THE CAKE OR GALETTE

Epiphany, a joyous feast, is also called la fête des Rois (FR), the feast of the Kings. In Northern France, one eats the galette des Rois. But in Southern France, the galette is a real cake or a brioche, the gâteau des Rois. In the French Canada of my youth, mothers baked a cake (un gâteau) in which a pea (une fève) had been inserted. The person whose piece of cake contained the pea was crowned King or Queen. The galette des Rois is made of flaky paste (pâte feuilletée) filled with almond paste (frangipane), candied fruit, creams and chocolate. (See gâteau des Rois and galette des Rois, Wikipedia.)

During the Roman Saturnalia, the slave who ate the piece of galette or cake containing the pea (black or white) became the master for one day. However, merriment went further than this one reversal. Everything was upside-down: a mundus inversus.

Now, if Epiphany and Theophany, the twelfth day of Christmas, date back to the beginning of the written word, Mesopotamia (Sumer), the raucous events of the Roman Saturnalia and the Greek kōmos have survived and also characterize the carnival season, which, as noted above, begins on 7 January, the day after Epiphany (Western Church) or Theophany (Eastern Church).

Le Gâteau des Rois, par Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1774 (musée Fabre).

Le Gâteau des Rois by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1774 (French; 21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805) (Courtesy musée Fabre).

Twelfth Night (The King Drinks) by David Teniers c. 1634-1640

Carnival (The King Drinks) by David Teniers, c. 1634-1640 (Flemish; 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690) (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Conclusion

Therefore, we have seen once again that the seasons, or the degree of luminosity (brightness), have long dictated the timing of feasts, be they Pagan (Roman, Greek and earlier) or Christian. Christmastide is the season during which, for one day, night (darkness) is longer than the day or (brightness), a world upside-down. It is the day of the longest night. In 2013, the Winter solstice occurred on 21 December. In 2015, it occurs on 22 December.

Furthermore, the Christian tradition has preserved elements of the Roman Saturnalia, honouring Saturn. It has a considerably Pagan side. Twelfth Night is a moment of unabashed revelry rooted in the Roman Saturnalia and the Greek Kōmos, the probable birthplace of comedy, the wise old man becomes a fool, the senex iratus.

We have also seen the importance of the stars and planets. The Kings of Orient are guided by a star and the Roman Saturnalia is a celebration of Saturn (as in Saturday), the above-mentioned god of agriculture and a planet.

In short, the humble calendar remains one of our most precious artifacts.

We have now entered Carnival Season, a season we have not forgotten.

A Happy New Year to all of you.

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Sources and Resources