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Depending on whether or not you’re happily partnered up, February can either be a time of love and romance or a month of resolutely ignoring all the pink hearts on our screens and in storefronts.
Valentine’s Day, after all, has become something of an economic event. This year, people are expected to spend around $23.9 billion on flowers, chocolates, cards, and hard-to-get dinner reservations, among other love-themed gifts of varying degrees of cheesiness.
But if you’re one for a little mystery and some brutal debauchery, then you might be surprised to find that Valentine’s Day has something in store for you, too — just not in a way that most people are aware of. Indeed, all the cupid-themed merchandise and elaborate romantic gifts today have rather fascinating histories that experts still aren’t too sure about.
As far as we know, there are several competing origin stories explaining the modern celebration of Valentine’s Day. And the question at the root of the debate is: Was Valentine’s Day inspired by a poem, a priest, or ritualistic animal sacrifice and whipping? (Yeah, you read that correctly.)
One, several, or all of these can be true, but whatever the case, these histories make for a pretty interesting reflection on how our culture thinks about and celebrates love.
The Priest: A Story of Different Valentines
Most people are aware that the holiday of love was named after Saint Valentine. But did you know that there’s more than one Saint Valentine?
In fact, there are about a dozen or so Valentines on the list of saints. That’s because “Valentinus” was a word that meant strong and worthy in Latin, which made it a pretty popular name for several centuries among more than a few martyrs.
The latest Valentine to have been canonized was actually St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, a Spanish Dominican who spent some time in the Philippines before becoming a bishop in Vietnam, where he was beheaded in 1861.
We even had a pope named Pope Valentine, who was said to be known for his piety and goodness. Not much else is known about him though, aside from the fact that he died about a month after becoming a pope.
And so, to identify the actual person to whom the February holiday refers, we usually use the full title of St. Valentine of Rome. But even then, the title may refer to either of two Saint Valentines.
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The history is a bit murky, which is why the Catholic Church had stopped the liturgical veneration of Saint Valentine in 1969, even though he’s (or they’re) still officially recognized as saint(s). But it is said that in the 3rd century AD, Emperor Claudius II had executed two men named Valentine on February 14 — albeit in two different years.
Incidentally, Claudius II was known by the not-so-charming nickname of Claudius the Cruel, because of his penchant for bloody campaigns and punching people’s and horse’s teeth out. He was also known as Claudius the Goth, not because he wore dark eyeliner, but because he defeated the Germanic tribe of Goths.
One account is of a Saint Valentine who was a temple priest that officiated secret weddings for young lovers. These were done in secret because Emperor Claudius II had forbidden marriages and engagements in Rome, as he believed that married soldiers didn’t make good warriors. He thought that men didn’t want to join the army because they were attached to their wives and families — instead of, I don’t know, not wanting to die in battle?
Valentine the priest thought this was unjust, and decided to hold weddings until he was found out, arrested, beaten, and beheaded in or around the year 270. According to some stories, Valentine tried converting Emperor Claudius II to Christianity, too, and the latter ordered Saint Valentine to reject his faith or die. He chose to die.
Other legends hold other details. According to some stories, Saint Valentine had worn a ring that had the symbol of Cupid on it to help soldiers and young men recognize him. In Roman mythology, Cupid was known to shoot arrows at both gods and humans, which caused them to fall in love. He was also the son of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty.
In other legends, Valentine wasn’t just a priest but, instead, was a bishop in the city of Terni, Italy. Some scholars think these two accounts might refer to the same person, but there’s really no way to tell.
Another story about one of these two Saint Valentines is that while one of them was in jail, he had written love letters to a woman. In some accounts, it was to a girl he had tutored and fell in love with, but others say it was to his jailer’s own daughter.
Other stories give her a name, Julia, and describe her as the blind daughter of Valentine’s jailer, whom he once tutored. According to legend, God had restored her sight after Valentine prayed with her.
Either way, the story goes that the letters he had written were signed, “From your Valentine” — a phrase those of us who enjoy writing and receiving love letters still use today. Plus, the bit about her finally getting to see after falling in love reminds me a little bit of Tangled’s I See the Light, but to each romantic their own.
Today, bits and pieces of St. Valentine’s bones are displayed in places like Ireland, France, and the Czech Republic. But if you’d like to see his skull, it’s on display at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome — complete with flowers.
St. Valentine is the patron saint of love, couples, and happy marriages, but also of beekeepers, epilepsy, and the mentally ill.
The Ritualistic Animal Sacrifice and Whipping: A Drunken Celebration of Fertility
The early Christian Church had a habit of appropriating pagan practices and holidays. Alongside Easter and Christmas, Valentine’s Day can trace its roots back to a pagan ritual of fertility — more specifically, the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia.
Celebrated on February 15, the Lupercalia was a festival of fertility, but it was also dedicated to Faunas, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as Romulus and Remus, the legendary brothers who founded Rome. It was led by its own priesthood of young men called the Luperci.
The celebration started with the sacrifice of one or more male goats, as well as a dog. From there, two of the Luperci would approach the Lupercal altar and have their foreheads anointed using the blood on the sacrificial knife. They were then wiped clean with milk-soaked wool while they laughed.
From there, celebrations continued with the sacrificial feast. During this, the Luperci would cut thongs from the flayed skin of the animals they sacrificed. These pieces of animal skin were called the februa, and the priests would run naked or near-naked in the city streets holding them.
While the priests were streaking across the city, they would strike people with the februa. Women also lined up to be gently whipped. The belief was that it would help pregnant women with delivery, and those who are struggling to conceive become pregnant. In later years, the priests ran clothed, and the women were only hit on the hands.
It’s because of this practice that Lupercalia was also known as dies Februatus. The februa is also the namesake of the month of Februa, the shortest month on the Roman calendar and the one our modern month of February is based on.
Aside from the animal skin and the whipping, the celebration also involved an early lottery-like form of Tinder. Women’s names would be placed in a jar, and single men would pick out the name of a woman they’d be coupled with for the duration of the festival. The couples often stayed together until the next Lupercalia, while many ended up getting married to whomever they matched with.
These practices continued well after the time of the two Saint Valentines, and despite the ban of non-Christian festivals in the year 391. Early Christians celebrated it — clothed, this time — until the rule of Pope Gelasius I, who was known for writing a lot and for hating the festival. He even went as far as to describe those who celebrated it as the “vile rabble.”
Though there was some resistance from Rome’s Senate, Pope Gelasius I eventually managed to outlaw the festival. In its stead, he declared February 14 — the date when two Saint Valentines were martyred — as St. Valentine’s Day.
The Poem: How Chaucer Shaped Valentine’s Day
Pope Gelasius I is largely credited for transforming a pagan celebration of fertility into a Christian holiday in St. Valentine’s Day, but there aren’t any records tying the holiday to romance the way we understand it today for centuries after Gelasius. It’s likely that people didn’t see St. Valentine’s Day as a celebration of romantic and courtly love back then, despite the legends surrounding the character(s) of St. Valentine.
The person credited to have made that link is Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval English poet. Though he is best known for his collection of stories in The Canterbury Tales, he also wrote a history-altering poem in Parliament of Foules in or around the year 1382.
This poem is also sometimes called the Parlement of Briddes. When modernized for those of us who didn’t major in medieval English literature, the two titles are Parliament of Fowls and Parliament of Birds.
At over 700 lines long, the poem depicts a dream vision of birds choosing their mates in a parliament. It’s recognized as the first record that associates romantic love with St. Valentine’s Day.
Indeed, Chaucer’s “For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate,” walked, so that Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards could run.
The association of birds might also be traced to how in Britain back then, February 14 was considered the first day of Spring, and the start of the mating season for birds.
By the time of Shakespeare a couple of centuries later, the association had only begun to catch on. For all the Shakespeare quotes about love you might see in February, he mentions St. Valentine’s Day exactly once in all his plays.
In Hamlet, Ophelia cites it as part of her mad ravings, alluding to the popular superstition that if two people met on February 14, they were likely to fall in love and get married in the future. She says, “To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day / All in the morning betime / And I a maid at your window / To be your Valentine.”
Of course, this was shortly before Ophelia died, which may or may not hold meaning with regard to how the Bard of Avon saw the holiday.
Regardless, the mention may have helped popularize the celebration of love on February 14th. And by the 20th century, Hallmark capitalized on the growing practice of writing and exchanging love letters on St. Valentine’s Day by creating and distributing Valentine’s Day Cards. This practice was helped along by growing literacy rates and better affordability of postage in the centuries prior.
So, What’s the Best Way to Celebrate Valentine’s Day?
The answer, of course, is entirely up to you. Given that the Romans used to celebrate it with literal animal sacrifice and ritualistic whipping, there’s certainly no right or wrong way to observe Valentine’s Day today (provided you don’t actually kill any dogs, I suppose, and all adults are consenting).
But if you’re celebrating with some chocolate and alcohol, scientists do recommend going for dark chocolate and red wine for heart health.
