Happy love day, word nerds!

I thought I’d take a slightly different approach to a blog post for today, given the date. Instead of fairy tales, let’s focus on the (admittedly somewhat muddled) real history behind Valentine’s Day and how the legend has grown over the centuries.

The Man

Contrary to popular belief (and even the heading of this section), there are many historical Valentines. There are even multiple St. Valentines (in fact, there are over a dozen – and there’s even a Pope Valentine!). But there’s little confirmed about their stories. So which one are we talking about when we talk about Valentine’s Day?

Generally, St. Valentine is believed to be one of two men. The first, St. Valentine of Rome, was a physician and priest who was killed around 270 A.D. by the Roman Emperor Claudius II. The other was the bishop of Terni, killed around the same time and by the same emperor. Since their stories of marrying couples against Roman law are so similar, many have wondered if they were the same person.

The St. Valentine associated with the holiday is, as you might expect, the patron saint of lovers. But he’s also the patron of beekeepers and those with epilepsy.

The Myth

The story goes that the Roman empire was at war. It needed soldiers to fight, and so conscripted young, unmarried men to fight. St. Valentine defied Roman law by marrying young couples (though stories vary as to whether it was in the name of love or in the name of civil disobedience), thus making the new husbands ineligible to serve.

St. Valentine was imprisoned for his crime of defiance. During that time, he was said to befriend (or fall in love with) his jailkeeper’s daughter. One of his last acts before his death was to send her a letter, signing it “your Valentine.”

The Legacy

Despite the long history of St. Valentine, the holiday as we know it didn’t really come into being for almost a thousand years. While feast days were celebrated in the saint’s name, it wasn’t a celebration of romance. That all changed, possibly due to the work of a single author. How’s that for the power of words?

Geoffrey Chaucer, most well known for The Canterbury Tales, wrote a poem in 1375 called “Parliament of Foules.” In it, the narrator dreams of Nature hosting a parliament for birds to choose their mates on none other than St. Valentine’s Day. Prior to that, there’s no record of Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday.

Tradition

As you may imagine, there are a variety of ways people celebrate this holiday. Some traditions are rooted in the day’s history, like spending time with a significant other. Others are more informed by culture: Robert Burns’ famous poem (“My love is like a red, red rose”) inspired the giving of red roses to the one you love.

And traditions weren’t confined to those in relationships. Single girls could participate in a variety of traditions, superstitions, and rituals to find out what sort of man she might marry. Scottish lasses would pull names out of a hat, and if they pulled the same name each time, they literally wore it on their sleeve the rest of the day. Elsewhere in the world, young singles would learn the profession of their future love by birdwatching. Of course, there were also ways to avoid becoming an old maid, such as running 12 laps around the local church or eating a hard-boiled egg (including the shell) at midnight.

What’s your favorite way to celebrate Valentine’s Day?