Valentine's Day century. Popular modern sources claim links to unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St. Valentine's Day, but prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, there were no links between the saints named Valentinus and romantic love. In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier" or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. Pope Gelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia. Some researchers have theorized that Gelasius I
St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake four service personnel of World War I and two of World War II. St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake is a Roman Catholic church in North Worple Way, Mortlake, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its priest is Canon Francis Moran. The church building, in Gothic Revival style, was designed by Gilbert Blount, architect to the first Archbishop of Westminster, Nicholas Wiseman, and dates from 1852. The church's first parish priest, Fr John Wenham, was a convert from the Oxford Movement, who had studied at Magdalen College, Oxford and had