Today is February 14th, Valentine’s Day, and I wondered about the origin of this day that celebrates love and romance. I remember, as a child, we decorated shoe boxes at school and bought boxes of small Valentine’s cards to put inside. Everyone received a card from everyone else. And I remember those little candy hearts with sayings on them such as “be mine.”
Today is a holiday that contains both pagan and Christian elements. So, who was St. Valentine? The history is shrouded in mystery, and it seems there are over a dozen that can claim the name, including a Pope. But three of them seem to be the front-runners in the debate.
The first claimant of the name was a priest who served in Rome in the third century. When the Roman Emperor, Claudius II, decided single men made better
fighters than married men, he banned marriage among members of his legions. Valentine, who believed this to be unjust, secretly continued to marry young lovers. He was put to death when his actions were discovered.
Next, there is Bishop Valentine, the first Bishop of Terni. He was one of the early Christians who followed the religion when it was still a cult in the Roman Empire. He ministered to persecuted Christians against the wishes of Claudius II and was put to death. Later stories date his death to the Ides of February on the 14/15th of the month.
The third is a little more confusing, as it may have actually been one of the two listed above. This story tells of a priest who was arrested for helping Christians escape from Roman prisons. While in prison himself, he fell in love with his jail keeper’s daughter and, on his death, wrote a letter to her signed, “From your Valentine.”
Any way you look at it, the stories all show a sympathetic, heroic, and romantic figure.
The selection of the date is up for debate as well and includes the martyrdom of the Bishop of Terni on the Ides of February. The most commonly agreed upon origin is that the day was selected in an attempt to Christianize the Roman holiday of Lupercalia. This pagan celebration fell on the Ides of February and was dedicated to Faunnus, the god of agriculture and fertility. At the end of the 5th century, Bishop Gelasius abolished the holiday as un-Christian and named February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day.
During the Middle Ages, it became a day of romance, as this was the time when the mating season of birds began. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer was the first to record it as a day for romance in his Parliament of Foules, claiming it was the day “when every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”
But it was in the Victorian era that the holiday reached its peak in popularity. So, courtesy of wearteachers.com, here are 25 fun facts about Valentine’s Day.
– over 145 million cards will be exchanged
– 25% of pet owners will give their pet a treat
– the inventor of candy hearts began his career making throat lozenges
– 8 billion candy hearts with messages are produced
– consumers will purchase over 58 million pounds of candy
– chocolate boxes were created by Cadbury (of course!) in 1850
– lovebirds are real birds
– the 1st Valentine was sent from prison (see above)
– thousands of people will send letters to Juliet of Shakespeare fame, and volunteers in Verona will answer them
– teachers receive more valentines than anyone else
– 250 million roses are grown for this one day
– at one time, doctors proscribed chocolate to mend a broken heart (I could get behind that)
– Hallmark prints over 1400 original designs each year (yay, Kansas City!)
– Valentine’s Day rivals Mother’s Day for giving flowers
– people in the Victorian era also gave penny dreadfuls, which were intended to insult undesirable suitors
– men spend more than women
– Hallmark was the first greeting card company to go national
– California has the most chocolatiers
– While we picture Cupid as a chubby cherub, he was originally a handsome Greek God
– the color of each flower has its own meaning: red for love, pink for happiness, purple for royalty, and white for sincerity
– four U.S. states have a city named Valentine: Arizona, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia
– mass weddings are commonly held on that day in the Philippines
– in Japan, women give men chocolates
– Oregon and Arizona became states on February 14th
– 63% of us will send someone a Valentine’s text
– the red heart was the most commonly used emoji in 2023
So there you have it, more information than you probably needed!
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Carol