Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love. However, Valentine’s Day wasn’t always chocolate, cherubs, and hearts.
Ancient Rome’s Violent Celebrations
In mid-February, the Romans celebrated a raucous celebration filled with debauchery, blood, and sacrifice. The fertility festival of Lupercalia was dedicated to Faunas, the Roman God of Agriculture, and to the founders of Rome – Romulus and Remus.
This depraved feast involved a ritual, where an order of Roman priests ran naked through the streets, gently slapping women with the blood-soaked hides of sacrificed animals, which had been cut into strips and dipped in blood; they believed this promoted fertility. The practice was supposedly welcomed, as it was believed to make the women more fertile in the coming year. This is possibly where the color red came to be associated with the holiday.
Afterwards, the violent fête included a matchmaking lottery, where young men drew the names of women from a jar. Then they would be coupled up for the duration of the festival, or longer if the match was right.
In the 5th century CE, Pope Gelasius I, outlawed Lupercalia to expel the Pagan rituals, and declared February 14 as Saint Valentine’s Day to replace the Pagan holiday.
Saint Valentine
The identity of who Saint Valentine was is also a mystery.
Emperor Claudius II executed two men who were both named Valentine on February 14, but in two different years in the third century. It is believed that the Catholic Church established Saint Valentine’s Day to honor both men, who they considered to be martyrs.
One account is of a priest named Valentine of Terni, which is a city in the southern portion of the region of Umbria in central Italy, who was arrested for defying a Roman decree that forbade soldiers from marrying. He was executed for the crime of continuing to wed lovers in secret against the emperor’s wishes.
Another account tells about an imprisoned priest named Valentine, who fell in love with one of his visitors – a young girl he had tutored and fell in love with, and then began writing letters to her. Before his before his execution he signed the final letter to her, ‘From your Valentine.’
These romantic tales are only legends, and since little historical information is known about the martyrs named Saint Valentine, in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed the feast day from its calendar, even though Saint Valentine is still recognized as a saint.
Cupid
Cupid is the ancient Roman God of Love in all its varieties, and the counterpart of the Greek God Eros.
In Roman mythology, Cupid was the son of Venus, the Goddess of Love and Beauty, and Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods. Cupid or Eros was known for shooting arrows at both gods and humans, causing them to fall instantly in love with one another.
Cupid is often seen on Valentine’s Day cards and paraphernalia, which is a symbol of this love-filled holiday. While it’s unclear exactly when Cupid was brought into the Valentine’s Day story, it’s certainly clear why.
France
In Northern France, the Normans celebrated Galatin’s Day. Galatin meant ‘lover of women.’ Because of the similarity in sound between the two words, it was probably confusion with Saint Valentine’s Day.
Merry Olde England
English poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer, best known for The Canterbury Tales, and English playwright and poet William Shakespeare has also been credited with popularizing the holiday’s romantic associations in their work. Afterwards, the festival gained popularity throughout Britain, and throughout the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became popular tokens during the Renaissance.
According to Jack B. Oruch, a University of Kansas English professor from 1963 to 1997, he made strong arguments to credit Chaucer with our modern ideas about Valentine’s Day. Through his research, Professor Oruch claimed that there was no significant written record linking the romantic tradition to Saint Valentine’s Day, until Chaucer wrote his 14th-century works ‘The Parlement of Foules’ and ‘The Complaint of Mars,’ in which, the Sun, referred to as Phebus, shines his light on Venus and Mars, exposing their affair, and thus allowing all the gods to see them together.
At the time of Chaucer’s writings, February 14, was considered the first day of spring in Britain; this was the beginning of the birds’ mating season. In fact, Chaucer’s ‘The Parliament of Fowls,’ is all about anthropomorphized birds gathering to choose their mates: “For this was on Saint Valentine’s day; when every fowl comes there his mate to take.”
Why did Chaucer specify Saint Valentine’s Day and not February 14? In a blog post for The Folklore Society, Jacqueline Simpson explained: “In the Catholic Church every day of the year celebrates at least one saint, and for a public who had no printed calendars it was easier to remember dates by names than by figures.”
By the mid-18th century, it was commonplace for friends and lovers to exchange small tokens and notes on Valentine’s Day. In the 19th century, the industrial revolution helped make printed Valentine’s Day cards popular.
Victorian Era
The mid-19th century marked the beginning of many of the commercialized Valentine’s Day traditions that we still celebrate today. Victorian men wooed women with flowers, Richard Cadbury created the first heart-shaped box of chocolates, and the New England Confectionery Company – Necco, began stamping out an early version of Conversation Hearts.
America
Eventually, the tradition of Valentine’s Day made its way to the New World. The Industrial Revolution ushered in factory-made cards. In 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Missouri, began mass-producing Valentine’s Day cards.
Esther Howland, who was in her early twenties, popularized store-bought English-style valentines in America thanks to her innovative assembly line process that made the elaborate cards affordable.
Today, the holiday is big business, and is widely commercialized.
According to Statista: Planned Valentine’s Day spending in the United States was expected to reach approximately 26 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. This is an increase of about two billion dollars from 2022.