Each year on February 14th many Americans celebrate a day of sharing love and affections with those of whom they care about most. Since we were children, we have come accustomed to the commercialized Valentine’s Day, taking little pause to truly contemplate from where this holiday derives. There is a cloud of mystery and legend surrounding Valentine’s Day, furthermore, the names of Christian martyrs and pagan festivals most often being used when detailing this diverse history. By analyzing and describing a brief history of Valentine’s Day, we may have a better appreciation for this now predominantly, “Hallmark” holiday.

The history of Valentine’s Day centers around three Christian martyrs and the Christianization of the pagan holiday Lupercalia. There were three early Christian martyrs by the name of Valentine. There was Valentine of Rome (martyrdom AD 269), the Valentine of Terni (martyrdom AD 197), and also a third Saint named Valentine martyred in Africa. Throughout history, these martyrs, who are now also legends, have come to be known as one person in the same. Thus, the legend follows as such; during the 3rd Century in failing Rome, Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than married ones, therefore outlawing marriage. Valentine, a priest at this time, felt that the law was absurd and continued to marry couples in private. After being caught in performing these marriages, Valentine was condemned, thrown in prison, and sentenced to death. Some legends say he was burned at the stake, while others say that he was beheaded on February 14th. According to legend, while in prison Valentine actually sent the first ‘Valentine’ greeting. Valentine was able to cure the jailer’s daughter of her blindness and from that point they fell deeply in love. Her love and affections were not able to save him though. On the eve of execution, Valentine wrote her a love letter, singed ‘From your Valentine;’ this expression is still used today. Many believe then, that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death.

The story of St. Valentine is only part of the history of Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day also centers on the Christianization of the pagan Lupercalia Festival. The ancient Roman’s celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a spring festival celebrated on February 15, held in honor of the god’s Faunus, Romulus, Remus, and Juno Februata. In ancient Rome, February was considered the official beginning of spring and also a time for purification. The festival was also used as a time to meet a prospective mate. As Christianity’s influence grew in Rome, pagan festivals like Lupercalia were Christianized. In AD 496, Pope Gelasius I outlawed the festival and declared February 14 as “Valentine’s Day.” Pope Gelasius I needed a “lovers” saint to replace the pagan Gods; therefore, he chose Valentine the Christian martyr who had been killed on the eve of the Lupercalia festival nearly two hundred years previous. At this juncture, the legends and mysteries of Valentine’s Day join to commemorate St. Valentine, while also retaining elements of the Lupercalia festival.

The Valentine’s Day we celebrate today is filled with much more mystery, love, death, and religion than is to be expected. The origins of this now commercialized holiday reveal the true essence of this holiday. Valentine’s Day should not only be a day to share your affection with loved ones, it should also be a day where people take pause to remember the complex history of a holiday that extends hundreds of years into our own cultural history.


This Experience

Writing a factual, reliable, and enjoyable history of Valentine’s Day using only free internet resources proved to be challenging, interesting, and enlightening. The main issues I encountered on this assignment where the reliability of sources, the contradictions of facts among the sources, and the extent to which there were volumes of information to digest.

Most of the websites I viewed for this assignment did not cite from where they were retrieving their information. It is quite possible the information on these sites was factual, yet without footnotes or in-text citations, the reliability and validity of their histories is compromised. It is alarming to think that much of the general public is reading these sources without questioning their validity. Although this does not apply to the entire general public, many of the readers will not view these sites with an analytical, critical eye; instead they will digest these histories as fact, furthermore sharing these histories with anyone willing to listen.

Many of the Valentine’s Day histories I encountered contradicted one another. The names, dates, and concepts are thrown around, leading me to believe that nobody has a clear grasp on the history of Valentine’s Day. The history of Valentine’s Day is clouded in mystery; this may explain for the diversity of definitions and explanations of similar names, events, and festivals around this holiday.

The variations in histories could also be attributed to the extensive presence of Valentine’s Day in popular culture. There are thousands of resources online to view discussions and histories of this holiday. The availability of resources may prove to be both positive and negative. It forces the audience to sort through hundred of sites; as we all know, this is not actually going to happen, therefore a lot of false sites are going to receive unwarranted attention. With so much information, which sites do you trust and use?

It was fascinating to see how many sites presented histories on Valentine’s Day. By reading a multitude of sites, you begin to see where authors have synthesized their own version of the history of Valentine’s Day; leaving out some facts, while adding in others. Presumably this is such the case with any history that is written, yet with the accessibility of information becoming so extensive with the internet, the visibility and usability of these abridged histories becomes that much greater; furthermore, that much more of a problem.

This experience has made me more appreciative of certain historical databases. As a graduate student, they indeed save you time from sorting through unreliable sources. With history databases you are confident that the sources are legitimate, once again saving you time. This experience also reinforces the idea that the “general public” is indeed interested in history. If people were not interested in history, there would not be the hundreds of websites that I encountered for this topic. The prevalence and existence of histories on almost any given topic further supports this argument. It is our responsibility, as academic scholars, to make all attempts to increase visibility, usability, and accessibility to histories that are factual, reliable, and enjoyable to read. This is our duty as public historians in the digital age.