Theories are that St. Valentine was Created from Several Stories
Among the many secular holidays derived from Catholic saints, Valentine’s Day stands out. A commercialized celebration of sweets and romance evolved from an homage to a holy martyr from the third century. It is still not apparent which St. Valentine was the initial inspiration for the holiday’s celebration, even when looking at historical records. Saints Valentine lived in the third century CE, with one being an African man, the other a Roman priest, and the third the bishop of Terni in Umbria, Italy.
The African St. Valentine is mostly undocumented, but the other two saints have enough mythological details to indicate they were one and the same (or that they borrowed heavily from each other’s stories). On February 14, probably in 269 or 270 CE, at the behest of Emperor Claudius II Gothicus, they were both beheaded at Rome and laid to rest on the same route. It is reported that they both restored sight to the jailer’s child, which converted the entire household to Christianity.
Due to the day’s lack of romantic connotations, the legend that the Italian St. Valentines performed clandestine weddings was probably added to the tale at a later date. Even though St. Valentine is still revered by Catholics, his feast day was removed from the General Roman Calendar—the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church—in 1969. February 14 is celebrated today in honor of the Byzantine brothers Cyril and Methodius, who spread the gospel over Central Europe in the ninth century CE, as stated in that calendar.
Which St. Valentine Existed in Reality?
A medieval poet originally originated the holiday’s romantic tradition, although there have been numerous St. Valentines—even ones without heads.
In observance of Saint Valentine’s Day, which is celebrated on February 14, we share sweet treats, special meals, and doily cards with those we care about. So, who exactly was the saint of romance?
Look for them or him in online articles. It is said that Saint Valentine, a Roman priest from the third century, secretly wed couples against the wishes of the authorities. Converting the entire household to Christianity and sealing his own fate, he healed the blind daughter of his captor while imprisoned in the home of a lord. On February 14, before he was brutally murdered and tortured, he sent a note to the girl and signed it “Your Valentine.”
The Bishop of Terni, another saint with the name Valentine, supposedly lived about the same time as Valentine and is also associated with hidden weddings and the killing of a Christian on February 14.
Scholars who have looked into the event’s origins believe there is little evidence to support the assertions made by those hoping for a tidy, romantic past. It was the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer who initially linked Valentine’s Day to love in the late Middle Ages.
There are at least fifty accounts of Roman saints named Valentine, and the name was common among the multiple martyrs. But according to Forbes, there are a lot of similarities in the first accounts of the two 14 February Valentines that have survived since the 500s. They were both beheaded on the same day and laid to rest next to the same highway; legend has it that they converted a whole family to Christianity after healing a sick kid while in prison.
The historical evidence is so hazy that it is difficult to tell if the legend started with only one saint and later grew to encompass two, if biographers of one guy borrowed details from the other, or if neither saint really lived.
Even more discouraging for those of us who long for romance, the original versions of the two Valentines were just ordinary martyrdom stories, with an emphasis on the saints’ miraculous deeds and terrible deaths and absolutely zero romance whatsoever.
Lupercalia as a Gateway Holiday to Valentine’s Day
A Christian effort to replace the older Roman festival of Lupercalia, which took place on February 15, is another possible origin of Saint Valentine’s Day. Lupercalia has been portrayed in some contemporary reports as an extremely sexually charged ritual in which males would randomly pair women whose names were scrawled on clay tablets.
Nevertheless, this is not borne out by the first accounts. Lupercalia, a Roman festival, was most similar to contemporary Valentine’s Day in that it included two young men, one of them naked, slapping another with a goat skin. The Greek historian Plutarch states that there were married women who thought that beating themselves with the skins would help them give birth more easily.
The Love Poem by Chaucer and Valentine
How therefore did Chaucer lay the groundwork for the modern-day Valentine’s Day? He wrote “Parliament of Fowls” somewhere in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, including the phrase that goes something like: “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate.”
During this time in Europe, a new school of romantic thought developed. The tragic obstacles and yearning themes that drive contemporary romantic comedies have their roots in the romances celebrated by Chaucer and other writers of his period, which had knights and noblewomen who were unable to marry (sometimes due to her already being married).
Poets of the nobility, moved by Chaucer’s works, started writing “valentines” to their sweethearts in the 1400s. Here is when legends about Saint Valentine and love first started to circulate.
It is believed that Chaucer, in search of an excuse to commemorate King Richard II’s engagement to Anne of Bohemia, came upon Valentine of Genoa’s feast day on that very day. (He could have sung about the Holy Cross instead, but it wouldn’t have fit the poem’s beautiful tone.) But the new love holiday became connected with the 14th of February as his contemporaries were better familiar with Saint Valentine’s Day. I can see how that could work out well in certain ways.