Happy Valentine’s Day to one and all. I have to admit I never gave a lot of thought to the origins of the celebrations surrounding the day.  And these days as an ordained priest I don’t give a lot of thought to the commercial aspects of the day and so I was taken by surprise when I stopped in at the local grocery store. Walking in the front door was as though walking into a sea of reds, shades of reds, and shades of shades of red. There were displays of roses, cookies, candies, cakes, floral displays, already-inflated balloons, cards, and an array of “stocking stuffers” for lack of a better description. It would have been easy to convince me that this was a commercial conspiracy of Hallmark Corporation of Kansas City, MO.

While they may capitalize on the day, they are not the source of the origin of the day. Valentine’s Day has origins that blend ancient Roman traditions, Christian martyrdom, and medieval romantic customs.

Before it became associated with love, mid-February was marked by Lupercalia, a pagan festival celebrated on February 13–15 in ancient Rome. This fertility festival honored Faunus (a god of agriculture) and Lupercus (little is known about this deity), and it involved rituals to promote fertility, including sacrifices and the pairing of young men and women through a lottery system.  I guess that was a non-digital version of a Roman dating service.

In the 3rd century, the Catholic Church recognized multiple St. Valentines, but two main figures are associated with February 14th – St. Valentine of Rome, a priest who was executed around 269 AD for secretly marrying Christian couples, defying Emperor Claudius II’s ban on marriage for young soldiers. 

An 18th-century embellishment to the story claims he wrote the jailer’s daughter a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before his execution. There are other traditions associated with this Saint, but those accounts are not associated with the “love tradition” we associate with the day. There was also St. Valentine of Terni, a bishop who was also martyred, possibly for similar reasons. 

Despite the banning in 391 AD of all non-Christian cults and festivals in the Roman Empire, Lupercalia was still celebrated on a regular basis into the reign of the Roman Emperor Anastasius (late 5th century AD). Pope Gelasius I (494–96) claimed that only the “vile rabble” were involved in the festival and sought abolition of the celebrations. The Roman Senate protested that the Lupercalia was essential to Rome’s safety and well-being, prompting Pope Gelasius’ scornful suggestion that “If you assert that this rite has salutary force, celebrate it yourselves in the ancestral fashion; run nude yourselves that you may properly carry out the mockery” (Epistle to Andromachus)

In any case, the martyr(s) Valentine was honored by the Church February 14th was established as St. Valentine’s Day. And soon thereafter Lupercalia disappeared from Rome.

The first recorded association of Saint Valentine’s Day with romantic love is believed to be in the poem Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer, a dream vision portraying a parliament for birds to choose their mates” “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day when every bird comes there to choose his match.” This idea popularized courtly love associations with St. Valentine’s Day, leading to the exchange of love notes and poetry. 

The earliest description of February 14th as an annual celebration of love appears in the Charter of the Court of Love. The charter, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France in 1400, describes lavish festivities to be attended by members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song and poetry competitions, jousting and dancing. Amid these festivities, the attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers.

By the 17th–18th centuries, Valentine’s Day became a day for handwritten love letters. In the 19th century, mass-produced Valentine’s cards became popular, especially in England and America.

Today, it is a global celebration of love, marked by gifts, flowers, chocolates, and romantic gestures – all available in your local grocery store.

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Image credit: St. Valentine; engraving by Cibera, 1853 | Pexels