In mid-February we will celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine, a day on which, traditionally, people express their love for each other, sending Valentine’s cards or giving gifts, often of candy or flowers. In schools, children send greetings to their classmates, and often an entire week is devoted to Valentine activities such as the decorating of special bags to hold one’s messages of friendship. Sometimes, there is a classroom party, with special treats such as cinnamon hearts or pink iced cupcakes. Oddly enough, although in many public schools these days the mention of Christmas is frowned upon, political correctness does not seem to extend to Valentine’s Day. Every one of the many, many classrooms I worked in as an educational assistant, acknowledged and celebrated Valentine’s Day. But where did it start? Who was this mysterious saint who has come to be associated with the mutual exchange of expressions of love?
Well, it seems there were several early Christian martyrs named Valentine. But there are two saints, and possibly a third, who are honoured on February 14.
Valentine of Rome was a priest who suffered martyrdom under the reign of the emperor Claudius in about A.D. 269. Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about A.D. 197, and was killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. Both of these martyrs are buried near the Via Flaminia in Rome. Some sources believe that they were one and the same person. (The third Valentine was martyred in Africa, but very little seems to be known about him.)
Several legends exist explaining the relationship between Valentine and love, but one version or another of the following story kept cropping up during my research: The emperor Claudius was having trouble recruiting troops for his army. No one wanted to leave his wife and children to go to war for the emperor, so Claudius decided to outlaw marriage for young men. They would then have no reason or excuse not to be soldiers, and the emperor’s army would thrive. Of course, the men of Rome were not pleased by this new law, and they found an ally in the priest Valentine, who defied the emperor and continued to perform secret marriages for them. Claudius was outraged, and promptly had him arrested and thrown in jail. Some sources say that Claudius took a liking to his prisoner, but Valentine made a strategic error in trying to convert the emperor and was sentenced to be clubbed to death. When this failed to finish him off, he was beheaded.
While in jail, Valentine established a relationship with a young girl who was thought to be his jailer’s daughter. Before his execution, he is said to have sent her a note expressing his love for her, signing it “from your Valentine”. Others maintain that before he died he miraculously cured her of blindness, which made him a candidate for canonization.
In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius proclaimed February 14 as St. Valentine’s Day. In 1969, the saint’s feast day was removed from the church calendar as part of an effort to eliminate those saints who were viewed by some as being of mostly legendary origin.
In the mid nineteenth century, a young woman named Esther Howland made and sent the first commercial Valentine cards, and Hallmark has never looked back. Candy makers, florists, and jewelers knew a good thing when they saw it, and today in Western countries St. Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas in terms of the number of cards and gifts presented to loved ones. According to the Greeting Card Association, approximately one billion Valentine cards are sent each year, 85% of which are purchased by women.