History of St. Valentine’s Day
Saint Valentine. Image: Wikimedia
HISTORY OF ST. VALENTINE’S DAY
The day we associate with love and romance has a history that traces back almost three millennia to ancient Rome but winds through Roman North Africa, England, and the United States.
St. Valentine was martyred on February 14. However, Valentine or Valentinus is the name of at least three martyred saints. The most celebrated are the two martyrs whose festival days fall on February 14. One was a Roman priest, the other a bishop of Terni.
Historical Context of St. Valentine
The legend indicates that both lived during the reign of Emperor Claudius II (Gothicus) around 270 and died on the same day. Both were buried on the Via Flaminia, but at different distances from the city of Rome. A third Valentine was a martyr in the Roman province of North Africa, about whom little is known.
This Claudius the Cruel had banned his soldiers from marrying, believing that unmarried soldiers were more reliable on foreign military campaigns. Valentine was beaten and beheaded because he had secretly married soldiers to their wives, contrary to the ban.
It appears that the first celebration of the Feast of St. Valentine was declared by Pope Gelasius I in 496 A.D. to be on February 14. Valentine is the patron saint of beekeeping, epilepsy, the plague, fainting, and traveling.
And, of course, he’s also the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages. Many authorities believe that the lovers’ festival associated with St. Valentine’s Day comes from the belief that this is the day in Spring when birds begin their mating. But there is another view.
Roman background to St Valentine’s Day
Lupercalia, Museo del Prado. Image: Wikimedia
In early Rome, a major festival, Lupercalia, was held every February in honor of the god Lupercus. During Rome’s founding, the city was surrounded by vast wilderness with large numbers of wolves. The Romans believed they needed a god to watch over and protect the shepherds and their flocks, so they called this god Lupercus, from the Latin word lupus, meaning “wolf”.
Lupa Capitolina, Rome. She-wolf with Romulus and Remus. Image: Wikimedia
Lupercus is also the name of the cave at the base of the Palatine Hill in Rome, where legend has it that the she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome, on April 21, 753 B.C.
One of the amusements on this festival day was placing young women’s names in a box to be drawn out by the young men. Each young man accepted the girl whose name he drew as his lady love. It remains unknown whether the customs of Lupercalia are perpetuated on Valentine’s Day.
Romance and St Valentine’s Day
Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules. Image: The Telegraph
But whence came the romantic aspect of Valentine’s Day? The medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about the Saint in his poem in the late 1370s called “Parliament of Foules.” He links a tradition of courtly love with the celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day.
However, this association didn’t exist until after his poem received widespread attention. The verse refers to February 14 as the day birds (and humans) come together to find a mate. When Chaucer wrote the following,
“For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate”
…his was the first mention in the published literature of the holiday as we know it today.
Customs of St Valentine’s Day
Practices and customs have changed over the years; during Christian times, priests placed saints’ and martyrs’ names in boxes to be drawn. The name drawn out was called one’s “valentine,” and the holy life of that person was to be imitated throughout the year. It was at one time the custom in England for people to call out:
“Good morning, ’tis St. Valentine’s Day!”
The one who succeeded in saying this first expected a present from the one to whom it was said, making things pretty lively on St. Valentine’s Day.
Ophelia, by John William Waterhouse. Image: Wikimedia
Shakespeare featured the idea of a romantic Valentine in his play Hamlet, when Ophelia refers to herself as Hamlet’s Valentine:
“Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day.
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine”
This follows the tradition that the first woman a man sees on the morning of Valentine’s Day will be his true love. Ophelia gets up early in the morning to be the first girl Hamlet sees.
St Valentine’s Day Cards
Ester Howland’s Valentine’s Day Card. Image: Wikimedia
Paper valentines date back to the 15th century, and cards to the 18th, but it took American enterprise to make a buck at it.
Esther A. Howland produced one of the first American commercial Valentines in 1848 and sold in the first year of sales $5,000 worth – when $5,000 was a LOT of money.
Hallmark Valentine’s Day card. Image: Hallmark
Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, MO, introduced these cards in 1913 and began mass-producing “valentines” in 1916. Hallmark is not just about identically plotted Christmas romance movies.
We now exchange approximately 145 million cards, not counting those exchanged in school classrooms. This makes Valentine’s Day the second-largest card-sending holiday in the year, after Christmas.
Today, $1.3B is spent on Valentine’s Day greeting cards.
Valentine’s Day Candy
US Valentine’s Day Sales through 2026. Image: Statista
Valentine’s Day is the fourth-priciest holiday on the U.S. calendar: Americans will spend an expected $29.1 billion this year, $2.4 billion just on candy. While Christmas and Easter are bigger in terms of the amount of candy sold, Valentine’s Day is Number 1 for spending on chocolate.
On average, Valentine’s Day celebrants spend almost $200 on the day, $100 for a couple’s dinner out. Men spend three times as much as women. Money is spent on flowers, jewelry, and candy… but especially chocolate. Fifty-eight million pounds of chocolate are purchased in the seven days leading up to February 14.
Valentine’s Day Chocolate
Although the Coronavirus Pandemic may have affected Valentine’s Day spending in the United States, annual chocolate sales have not been affected over the years. Last year, Americans bought 75 million pounds of chocolaty confectionery consumables for this holiday. This is a 512% increase in chocolate sales, despite rising cocoa prices.
Infographic: U.S. Chocolate Sales Continue to Rise | Statista
By the way, if you’re asked if you have a “date” for St. Valentine’s Day, you can say:
Yes… my date is February 14.
Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com
Podcast:
