The history of Valentine’s Day–and the story of its patron saint–is
shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated
as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it
today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition.
But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this
ancient rite?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three
different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were
martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served
during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that
single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he
outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of
the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young
lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius
ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that
Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape
harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured.
According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first
“valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young
girl–possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his
confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter
signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.
Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories
all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and–most
importantly–romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Origins of Valentine’s Day: A Pagan Festival in February

While
some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of
February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or
burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the
Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in
the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan
celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or
February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus,
the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus
and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an
order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants
Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been
cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for
fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the
goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to
the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat
hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the
hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming
year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the
city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would
each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman.
These matches often ended in marriage.

Valentine’s Day: A Day of Romance

Lupercalia
survived the initial rise of Christianity and but was outlawed—as it
was deemed “un-Christian”–at the end of the 5th century, when Pope
Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It was not until much
later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love.
During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England
that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added
to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for
romance.

Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the
Middle Ages, though written Valentine’s didn’t begin to appear until
after 1400. The oldest known valentine still in existence today was a
poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he
was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the
Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript
collection of the British Library in London, England.) Several years
later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John
Lydgate to compose a valentine note to Catherine of Valois.

Typical Valentine’s Day Greetings

In addition to the United States, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico,
the United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, Valentine’s
Day began to be popularly celebrated around the 17th century. By the
middle of the 18th, it was common for friends and lovers of all social
classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritten notes, and
by 1900 printed cards began to replace written letters due to
improvements in printing technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way
for people to express their emotions in a time when direct expression of
one’s feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates also contributed
to an increase in the popularity of sending Valentine’s Day greetings.

Americans
probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. In
the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced
valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,”
made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures
known as “scrap.” Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an
estimated 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making
Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. (An
estimated 2.6 billion cards are sent for Christmas.) Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.