A history of Valentine's Day

Even when single, I've never really minded Valentine's Day that much (I quite enjoy it in fact - you get all sorts of two-for-one deals on love hearts, and they are the best sweet ever) and that is mostly for one main reason: the original Valentine's Feast Day was to celebrate the Valentines (there were at least three) who were early Christians murdered for their beliefs by the Romans, which is possibly the least romantic thing I've ever heard. So anyone who tries to tell you some myth about how Valentine was a spurned lover who wrote a card to the daughter of the jailer who was imprisoning him for...something (I don't know, these myths aren't always very well written...) and this signifies the old adage that 'love conquers all, even death' and this signifies...er...something, is a liar.

Or, you know, something. One has to be a little bit bitter, after all. Keeping up appearances, and everything.

Anyway, despite these rather gruesome beginnings, St. Valentine's Day did eventually become associated with romantic love in the 14th century, when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem commemorating the engagement of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia (fun fact: they got married when they were both just 15 years old). A century later, in 1415, the first Valentine's card was sent, by Charles, duc d'Orleans, to his wife whilst he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. One hopes it was a good message, because he was to be kept captive for a further 24 years, and by the time he was released, his wife had died (so, naturally, he married again, as soon as he was set free). 

Cards became more and more popular in the following centuries - in the 16th, it was popular to send your lover a handmade card decorated with cupids, hearts and bows; in the 18th, one could begin to buy into the commercialized Valentine's Day, either by sending a lover one of the first printed cards or by transcribing a verse from Valentine Writers - a book of standard rhymes and greetings (how awkward would it be if you and your paramour sent each other the same poem, whilst hoping to convince each other that you were being original?); and by the 19th century, postmen were claiming a special allowance for their extra loads on the day. Also in the 19th century came the first mechanical Valentine's cards, my favourite of which had a figure that rolled it's eyes and stuck out its tongue when opened.

Today's traditional red rose first became part of the day's celebrations in 18th century France, with people imitating the love tokens given to Marie Antoinette by King Louis XVI. Coincidentally, red was also the colour their clothes became stained when their heads were chopped off by the French people in 1791.

Love hearts were invented in 1933, produced in a factory in Star Lane, in London, though they had to move out during the Blitz. They relocated to a disused mill in Darbyshire where they remain in production to this day.

Thank God. 

A Tax on your Strangeness

So on New Year's Eve, 1695, a window tax was introduced in England. This was, literally, a tax on windows (but not, as I first misread, widows...). In honour of the fact that this was not nearly the weirdest thing to have been taxed, here is a list of 10 very odd taxes.

1) Window Tax:

Now, I am quite a fan of windows. They allow me to, y'know, see stuff that's outside without actually having to go into the outside, which is quite nice, especially when it is snowing or raining. They also are a very good means of keeping bugs and other unwanted objects away from my personage. Of course, being a modern, twenty-first century type, you know this already, and I am sure you are a fan of windows too. In 1695, many of the rich men and women of England also were fans of windows. 

 

However, when their King, William III decided that, under the Act of Making Good the Deficiency of the Clipped Money (yeah...that...uh...), windows should be taxed, the elite of England decided to brick up their windows so they wouldn't have to pay the tax, which is, I suppose, one way of getting around the problem. The tax itself had been introduced because the government was in need of money, but unable to pass a law which allowed them to collect a simple Income Tax, as  it was believed by many that disclosing your personal income to the government was an act of unacceptable intrusiveness into your personal liberties (an excuse I fear wouldn't go down too well today with HM Revenue and Customs).

The rate of tax was 2 shillings per house, with houses with more than ten windows incurring a variable rate of tax, and wasn't repealed until 1851, when 'House Duty' was introduced. 

2) Beard Tax:
In England, in 1535, King Henry VIII introduced a tax on beards. This was actually quite a clever idea to raise money - obviously the King and his government needed money, but it was often hard for them to raise it. However, anything that the King was seen to do or wear suddenly became highly fashionable, as people were keen to show the ruler what an excellent idea His Majesty had had in choosing to play bowls/wear clogs/learn the lute and so on. So naturally, when Henry grew a beard, those of his courtiers who were able to immediately followed suit (imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery). Henry then introduced the tax, knowing that no one would dare shave off their beards in case they were seen as being against something the King believed in - which was a pretty clever way of thinking, actually.

The tax was variable, and those with more income paid more, rather that those with larger beards paying more. However, when Elizabeth I reintroduced the tax a few years down the line, she taxed every beard of more than two week growth, which must have been very hard to measure, though I'd imagine that 18 year old weedy boys managed to get away with not paying it for several years...

3) Beard Tax, the sequel:
The beard tax was introduced again in 1705, but this time by Peter the Great of Russia. All men with beards were required to pay a tax, and carry around a token which stated that they had indeed paid their tax. The token was inscribed with two phrases - "the beard tax has been taken" (fairly self explanatory), and "the beard is a superfluous burden". The tax had been designed to encourage Russian men to get rid of their beards, as Peter believed that their hirsuteness meant that they weren't as forward-thinking as other Western European countries, and Russia could only become truly modern when the men were clean shaven like their clean-shaven fellow Europeans, which is a real shame.

4) Cooking Oil Tax:
Now, anyone who has seen the pyramids or Tutankhamen's death mask knows how much the Pharaohs liked their extravagances, but even though they were considered literal Gods on the Earth, they still had to find the money to pay for all the jewelery, fancy palaces and eyeliner. Possibly the strangest way they thought would allow them to collect this money from their subjects was to tax cooking oil - or rather, force their citizens to buy cooking oil only from the Pharaohs themselves. The scribes (Ancient Egyptian taxmen) would go round to all houses to ensure they were using enough oil and, in possibly the oddest twist, refuse to allow them to recycle the used oil, instead binning it and forcing the people to buy new, Pharaoh-approved oil.

5) Hat Tax:
By 1784, it had become apparent that the Window Tax in Britain was not enough to keep the country afloat, and so new methods of taxation were introduced. The government, led by William Pitt the Younger, once again tried to introduce an Income Tax, but were once again prevented from doing so by a public who believed that this was an outrageous infringement on their right to privacy, and so decided to introduce a tax on hats.

This isn't actually as absurd as is sounds. The theory was that, the richer you were the more hats you would own, and the better quality these hats would be. Whereas a poor person might have just the one hat, which wasn't of a very good quality (and so wouldn't have to pay very much tax at all), a member of the aristocracy would have a lot of very expensive hats, and so would have to pay a lot of tax. The problem with this, though, was that it was very unpopular, and apparently led to people insisting that what they were wearing on their head wasn't actually a hat at all, so they wouldn't have to pay the tax ("Oh, this? It's not a hat, no not at all...it's er...a kilt! Yes, a kilt. I'm embracing my Scottish heritage! Och aye, and all..."). 

6) The 'anything-but-Income-Tax' Tax:
As people were so very unwilling to admit their income to the taxman, the government of the eighteenth century introduced many taxes on various household items, in an attempt to raise revenue this way. Some of the items they taxed included taxes on building materials such as wallpaper and bricks; taxes on leisure items, including dice and almanacs and taxes on clothing and make-up, such as glove tax, perfume tax and hair-powder tax (though the Royal Family and their servants, and clergymen were exempt from paying this particular tax). The British people responded to this by not purchasing any more hair-powder, and walking around with very greasy hair for a good number of years, until someone worked out how to invent shampoo.

7) Urine Tax:
Not a tax on those who produced it, but on those who sold it on (er, of course...). In ancient Rome, it became very easy for the owners of public toilets to sell on the urine they collected to tanners and cleaners, who used the ammonia in it (yum...). Officials noticed how rich the toilet owners were becoming, and, on discovering why, introduced a tax on urine.  

8) Salt Tax:
As salt has so many uses in our lives, it has always been taxed, in India as much as anywhere. However, when the British took over India as part of their Empire they raised the tax extortionately. From 1858, the Indian people were forced to pay an incredibly high rate of tax on their salt - something which continued for another 80 years. During March 1930, Gandhi led the first Salt March to Dandi. This was his very first non-violent protest against British rule of India, and though it didn't actually do anything about the Salt Tax, it did help to increase the levels of awareness of the Indians' plight, and gave them international support for their campaign for independence.


9) Artistic Exemption:
This, in fact, is the opposite of tax - in 1969, Ireland brought in a rule which stated that income derived from the sale of art (books, music, paintings, sculpture, film and so on) was exempt from taxation, allowing us to perpetuate the image of a starving artist. The act was introduced to allow artists who had fallen on hard times to recover more easily, but ended up being a bit of a problem when it became apparent in the mid 2000s that Irish rock group U2 were paying no tax on their millions. The law was modified so that only those artists with an income of less than 250,000 euros were exempt, and Bono and co. moved their savings to the Netherlands, so they ensure that they still didn't have to pay tax. Huh. 

10) Poll Tax:
A Poll Tax is very popular with governments because it can be implemented at any time, very easily, and is very unpopular with the public because it can be implemented at any time, very easily. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher tried to introduce the tax, but was thwarted by the rioting and protesting of the public who were outraged at it's unfairness. (Anyone who doesn't think it's fair should imagine that I have 100 gold coins and am asked to pay just 1 in tax; whereas you, who have only 2 gold coins, are also asked to pay 1 in tax, and then consider its fairness...) Though they may have gotten their History a little bit confused ("Yeah! We're rioting in the spirit of the revolting peasants of thirteen-something who didn't want a Poll Tax either so they forced Queen Victoria to sign the Magna Carta and that's why Henry VIII broke with Rome!") but I can't fault them for their passion, and they did help strongly contribute to the ousting of Thatcher as PM, so it definitely wasn't a bad thing.                     

The Christmas...Orgy?!

Sometimes, when I'm writing these little bloggy things, I have to check what day it is because I'm a bit disorganized, and enjoy asking Mr. Google questions. In December, however, this is not an issue at all, because I have an advent calender, which tells me the day and gives me chocolate. If this was the only thing that made Christmas a special holiday, I'd still love it... So, in honour of my feeling particularly festive as a result of having a little piece of chocolate to eat (God, I'm easy to please...), here is part one of a History of Christmas:

300 years Before Christ, or Before the Common Era if you'd prefer, if you happened to be in Persia towards the end of December you would find the people dancing around bonfires, paying homage to Mithras, God of light and guardian against evil. This festival was absorbed into the Roman Empire, becoming Dies Natali Invicti Solis, or the birthday of the unconquered Sun and later the festival of Saturnalia.

Saturnalia actually sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. As you may have guessed, it was both named after and a celebration of the Roman God Saturn, who was the God of Plenty. Festivities began around the solstice, and lasted seven days. To participate, you would have had to partake in the usual excess drinking and eating we have come to associate with Christmas, but the Romans had an interesting twist - the festival also involved inverting many social norms (such as men dressing up as women and vice versa, and masters waiting on servants) and allowing normally forbidden pastimes (including gambling and sex 'in groups' according to the Readers' Digest...so it was basically an orgy?!). Interestingly, they also decorated their homes with evergreens - the first (recorded) people to do so. 

At the same time, the Celtic tribes of northern Europe celebrated Yule, a festival similarly marked by indulgent eating and drinking, and the exchanging of gifts (for those who could afford it). They also decorated their homes with evergreens, and added holly, ivy and mistletoe, which symbolized extreme danger from Nargles renewal and everlasting life. Fires were lit, from which comes the tradition of burning a large Yule Log.

During the Dark Ages, the Christian Church started to have a much stronger grip on western Europe, especially in Britain. Whilst allowing the pagan faith to continue in any form was generally frowned upon, an exception was made for Christmas (though the tale of small children wandering around in dressing gowns and tea towels the birth of the Son of Christ was obviously pushed to the forefront of the celebrations, instead of old rituals involving fires and sacred plants). In 567, the Church declared the 12 days between the Nativity and Epiphany a sacred season, and by the time of the Norman Conquest, this period had become Britain's main holiday.

The Christmas celebrations remained largely unchanged for the next 500 odd years, with the exception of the banning of Christmas in 1647 (yes, this isn't just a myth). It was not, as is commonly claimed, Oliver Cromwell alone who banned the festival, but the New Model Army (of which he was one of the chief officers, admittedly), which was made up of extremely zealous Puritans who believed that Jesus would absolutely not be coming again until the country was sorted out and the people stopped behaving like such wanton harlots. The Major Generals (the top officers of the Army) decreed that only the Sabbath should be a day of rest, and the only national holiday should be 5 November, to celebrate its freedom from papist despotism.

What they didn't factor in was the public's reaction to this. People decorated the streets with holly and mistletoe, shopkeepers openly defied the demands to open their stores on Christmas Day. In Kent, an armed rebellion took place, most of which was quickly put down, but over 3,000 rebels held out behind the old Roman walls in Colchester for several months afterward. Though the Puritan reforms continued throughout the country, the banning of Christmas was quietly dropped for the following years.

What we today would recognise as 'Christmas' descended from the Victorian, C19th era where it was seen as an opportunity to embellish commercial interests. Most of our "traditions" either stem from this point or were revived by the middle and upper classes, eager to show off their great wealth and benefit themselves only, which is capitalism at it's absolute worst...but does give us beautifully festive scenes such as the one above, and The Nutcracker, so I think I might find it in my heart to forgive them a little bit...

[Part Two to follow.]