• Know origin of the celebration of Valentines Day and how has it evolved over time starting the 4th century? Was Valentine a martyr or Bishop? How did Valentine Day cards start? The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries.

There are many legends behind the observance celebration related and to St. Valentine’s Day or the Feast of St. Valentine, honouring the martyr named Valentine. Through later folklore traditions it has become a significant religious, cultural and commercial celebration of romance and love in many places across the world. 

As early as the 4th century BCE, the Romans practised an annual young man’s rite of passage to the Roman god Lupercus. This Roman festival, Lupercalia, celebrated in early spring, included fertility rites and pairing of women with men by lottery. The names of teenaged women were placed in a box and drawn at random by adolescent men. Based on the lottery, a man was assigned a woman companion for mutual entertainment and pleasure, for the duration of a year, after which another lottery was staged. In Rome in 270 AD, Valentine challenged the mad emperor Claudius II who had passed an edict forbidding marriage. Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers because they were unwilling to leave their families to join the army. The empire needed soldiers, so Claudius abolished marriage.

This article was first published in the Bhavan Journal.

Valentine, bishop of Interamna, invited young lovers to come to him in secret, where he joined them in the sacrament of marriage. Claudius heard about this ‘friend of lovers’ and had the bishop brought to the palace. The Emperor, impressed by the young man’s dignity and conviction, attempted to convert him to the Roman religion to avoid execution. Valentine refused to renounce Christianity, and in turn, tried to convert the Emperor to Christianity. On February 14, 270 AD, Valentine was jailed, clubbed, stoned and then beheaded. Some of his relics are preserved in various places.

It is believed that while Valentine was in prison awaiting execution, he fell in love with the jailor’s blind daughter. Through his unnerving faith, he miraculously restored her sight. He signed a farewell message to her before his execution, ‘From Your Valentine’, a phrase that lived long after Valentine died. Numerous later additions to this legend were related to love. 

According to a legend, in order to remind men of their vows and God’s love, St. Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchments, giving them to soldiers and prosecuted Christians, which appears to be the origin of the widespread use of hearts on St. Valentine’s day. St Valentine is supposed to have worn an amethyst ring. Probably due to this association with St. Valentine, amethyst has become the birthstone for February, which is thought to attract love.

St. Valentine 

Determined to put an end to the 800-year-old practice, the early Church fathers found a ‘Lover’s Saint’ to replace the Roman deity Lupercus. From the Church’s point of view, Valentine, a bishop who was martyred 200 years earlier, appeared to be the ideal person to replace the popularity of Lupercus. So, in mid-February, in AD 496, Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercalian festival. 

He, however, retained the lottery, knowing well the Romans’ craze for the game of chance. Now, in the box, in place of single women, the names of saints were placed. Both men and women were to draw the slips from the box and in the ensuing year, they were expected to emulate the life of the saint whose name they had drawn. It was disappointing to many males.

But the spiritual power behind the entire affair was its patron saint, Valentine. Over a passage of time, more and more Romans relinquished their pagan festival and replaced it with the Church’s holy day. 

Association with Romantic Love

The day became associated with romantic love in the 14th and 15th centuries, when the ideas of ‘courtly love’ flourished. The colour red and heart shape first started showing up in medieval art during this period. What firmed up the connection between St. Valentine and love was a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1375 which historians consider as the origin of modern celebration of the day, where we celebrate the romantic partnership with another person. Chaucer lived in an era when broad romantic statements of devotion, in the form of poems, songs or paintings, celebrated partnerships. 

By the end of the 15th century, the word ‘Valentine’ was used to describe a ‘lover’ in poems and songs. In the 18th century it grew into an occasion for couples to express their love for each other by offering bouquets, confectionary and greeting cards (called ‘Valentines’). Today many skip the celebrations but buy gifts, chocolates and /or flowers, especially roses (a symbol of beauty and love), to express their love and appreciation of romantic partners, co-workers, friends or family members. 

Valentine Day Cards

Traditionally, mid-February was the time when the Romans met and courted prospective mates. Young men instituted a custom of offering in February, handwritten notes to the women they admired and wished to court. These cards acquired Valentine’s name. As Christianity spread, so did the Valentine’s Day card. 

In 1945 Charles, the duke of Orleans, sent a card to his wife while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. Later the use of cards proliferated and became more decorative. Cupid, the naked cherub armed with arrows dipped in a love potion, became the popular Valentine image. He was the son of Venus, the goddess of love. Because the mating season for birds begins in mid-February, birds have become a symbol of the day.

By the 17th century, printers had already started producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches. Later the Valentine business flourished and Valentine cards became the second-most exchanged cards after Christmas cards. Lovers affectionately signed ‘XXX’, not being aware that this custom goes back to the early Christian era, when a cross mark or ‘X’ conveyed the force of a sworn oath. The ‘X’ was the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, ‘XRISTOS’. To emphasise the complete accord, they often kissed the mark, as a Bible was frequently kissed when an oath was sworn upon it. It was the practice of kissing the ‘X’ that led to its becoming a symbol of a kiss. 

In 1868, Cadbury’s, the British chocolate company, created fancy, decorated boxes which contained chocolates in the shape of a heart for Valentine’s Day. This became associated with the holiday. With the advent of the internet, every year millions of people use the digital method of creating and sending e-cards for Valentine’s Day. Now Valentine’s Day is celebrated all over the world. However there are criticisms from certain groups about this celebration.

This article was first published in the Bhavan’s Journal, 1 February 2025 issue. This article is courtesy and copyright Bhavan’s Journal, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai-400007. eSamskriti has obtained permission from Bhavan’s Journal to share. Do subscribe to the Bhavan’s Journal – it is very good.

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