Feb

On This Day in History: Happy Valentine’s Day

By Tamahome Jenkins · February 14, 2009

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Courtesy of Cayusa on Flickr

St. Valentine was a popular name in ancient Rome, so much so, that up until 1969 the Roman Catholic Church formally recognized 11 St. Valentine’s Days! However, February 14th is recognized as the saints’ day of two early Christian martyrs, a priest from Rome and a bishop from Terni. Despite the date’s Christian origins, Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated throughout the world as a day in which lovers profess their feelings through each other, traditionally through hand-written notes or verbal declarations of love.

There’s still some debate as to when people began celebrating Valentine’s Day on February 14. The ancient Romans observed Lupercalia, a festival of fertility, from February 13-15. This could possibly explain why Cupid, the Roman god of erotic love and beauty is so prevalent on Valentine’s Day. However, Lupercalia was a pagan festival and did not have any relation to an Catholic saints. The first link between Valentine’s Day and love was by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1382 when he wrote Parlement of Foules in honor of the engagement of King Richard II of England and Anne of Bohemia. Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

Even this doesn’t necessarily mean that Valentine’s Day was celebrated on February 14th, as the likelihood that birds would come together and mate in mid-February in England is slim. More than likely, Chaucer was writing of May 2nd, the saints’ day of Valentine of Genoa. Nonetheless, the celebration of Valentine’s Day on February 14th as a day of love increased in popularity throughout the middle ages and during the Rennaissance, when courtly love, the act of professing your love in noble and chivalrous ways, prevailed.

After dipping in popularity over the next couple of centuries, Valentine’s Day made a comeback in the mid-nineteenth century. As stated earlier, handwritten notes and spoken poems were the traditions of Valentine’s Day during the Middle Ages, but it was the mass-production of greeting cards in the 1840s that led to the revival of Valentine’s Day in its current form. Today, the U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that roughly 1 billion cards will be sent, making Valentine’s Day the second most popular holiday for greeting cards behind Christmas.

I know you’re wondering, what is the significance of giving gifts on Valentine’s Day? Well, that appears to be a modern legacy, as part of the commercialization of Valentine’s Day, as there was no tradition of the giving of gifts until the 20th century. So, yes, in some regards Valentine’s Day is just another “Hallmark Holiday”. Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it.