Saint Valentine: the martyr, Chaucer and the birth of a festival

Today 14 February is the lovers' festival in much of the world, but for many centuries it was simply the liturgical memorial of a martyr. The shift from saint to love did not happen in Rome or in late antiquity, as is often claimed, but in late medieval England and France, thanks to court poets. It is a story in which documentation readily mingles with legend.

One or two martyrs named Valentine

Ancient martyrologies commemorate two Valentines on 14 February: a Roman priest and a bishop of Interamna, modern Terni, both martyred and buried along the Via Flaminia. Many scholars think they may be the same figure, venerated in two different places. The passion narratives describing his life are late and rich in legendary elements, and they place the martyrdom in the time of the emperor Claudius II, in the third century.

Terni is home to the basilica that holds the relics attributed to the bishop, and the city has made Saint Valentine its patron. The popular stories that have him celebrating secret weddings between soldiers and young women, or writing notes signed «from your Valentine», are instead late tales with no basis in the ancient sources. In 1969 the reform of the Roman calendar removed his memorial from the universal calendar, leaving it to local churches.

The Lupercalia and a theory to handle with care

It is often said that the Christian feast was created to replace the Lupercalia, a Roman festival of purification and fertility held on 15 February. It is true that at the end of the fifth century Pope Gelasius I wrote a polemical letter against those who wished to keep that rite. However, no ancient source connects the Lupercalia with Saint Valentine, and the replacement theory is a modern hypothesis, not an established fact.

Chaucer's birds

The first text that clearly links Saint Valentine with love is Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, composed around 1380. The poet imagines that on that day all the birds gather to choose a mate: «Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make». The idea that birds paired in mid-February was already in circulation, and Chaucer turned it into a poetic motif that would enjoy enormous success.

In the following century the theme spread through the courts. Charles of Orléans, a prisoner in England after the battle of Agincourt in 1415, wrote verses addressing his distant wife as his Valentine. In February 1477 the young Margery Brews, in a letter preserved among the papers of the Paston family, called her fiancé John Paston «my right well-beloved Valentine». It is one of the oldest private Valentine letters to have come down to us.

From handmade cards to industry

Between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries exchanging cards became a widespread habit in England. The introduction in 1840 of the uniform postal rate, the Penny Post, made sending them cheap, and a real market emerged for cards decorated with lace, hearts and cupids. In the United States commercial production developed in the same years, preparing the way for the global festival of the twentieth century.

The modern Valentine's Day is therefore the product of many layers: a poorly documented Roman martyr, an English poet watching the birds, the verses of a captive prince, the letters of a Norfolk fiancée and, finally, the postal service and industrial printing. Knowing where the festival comes from makes it easier to appreciate, separating the fine legends from the real history.