Saint Valentine
In the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome, a skull crowned with flowers is displayed as the alleged head of Saint Valentine. That single word, alleged, captures the puzzle of this saint. Saint Valentine was a Roman Christian of the 3rd century, a clergyman who ministered to persecuted believers. Whether he was a priest or a bishop is still unsettled.
His name now belongs to cards, hearts and courtship, and he is also a patron saint of beekeepers. Much of that association comes from centuries after his death. So how many men named Valentine were there, and what do the legends say they did? And who actually turned a martyr into the patron of lovers?
The Chronography of 354, the earliest list of Roman martyrs, does not mention Saint Valentine at all. Its patron was a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus, which makes the silence curious.
The Echternach recension of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum does name a Valentinus martyred in Rome and another martyred in Africa. It gives no year and no further detail. That martyrology was likely compiled in the 620s in Luxeuil, and many of its entries come from an earlier list of saints from Aquileia.
Later hagiographical sources speak of three Saints Valentine linked to the 14th of February. One was a Roman priest. Another was the bishop of Interamna, which is modern Terni in Italy. Both were buried along the Via Flaminia outside Rome, at different distances from the city. The third suffered with a number of companions in the Roman province of Africa, and nothing else is known of him.
The surviving accounts of the first two are late and contain legendary elements. Even so, a common nucleus of fact may lie beneath both, and they may describe a single person.
The Diocese of Terni tells its own version in an official biography. Bishop Valentine was born and lived in Interamna. During a temporary stay in Rome he was imprisoned, tortured and martyred on the 14th of February 269. His body was buried in haste at a nearby cemetery. A few nights later his disciples retrieved it and brought him home.
A popular modern legend says Pope Gelasius I established the feast in 496. That story rests on a statement in the Gelasian Decree which names Saint George but not Saint Valentine. The decree is not actually by Gelasius.
The name itself comes from valens, meaning worthy, strong or powerful, and it was popular in Late Antiquity. About eleven other saints named Valentine are commemorated in the Catholic Church. The Roman martyrology lists seven who died on other days. One is Valentine of Passau, a missionary bishop to Raetia who later lived as a hermit near Mais in South Tyrol and died in 475. Others include Valentine Berrio Ochoa, martyred in 1861, and Valentine Jaunzarás Gómez, martyred in 1936. It also lists a woman, Saint Valentina, martyred in 308 in Caesarea, Palestine.
The 2001 and 2004 editions of the Martyrologium Romanum settled on a single Valentine for the 14th of February: a martyr who died on the Via Flaminia.
Judge Asterius stands at the center of the most common legend. Valentinus, the Latin form of the name, was under his house arrest and discussing the truth of Jesus with him. The judge set a test. He brought out his adopted blind daughter and promised to do whatever Valentinus asked if her sight were restored. Valentinus prayed, laid his hands on her eyes, and the child could see.
Humbled, the judge asked what he should do. Valentinus told him to break all the idols around his house, fast for three days, and then be baptised. Asterius obeyed, and he freed the Christian prisoners under his authority. The judge, his family and a household of forty-four adults and servants were all baptised.
Valentinus was arrested again for continuing to spread his faith. This time he was sent to the emperor Claudius Gothicus, also called Claudius II. The emperor took a liking to him until Valentinus tried to convert him. Claudius refused and gave a choice: renounce the faith, or be beaten with clubs and beheaded. Valentinus would not renounce, and he was executed outside the Flaminian Gate.
The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled around 1260, was one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages. Its very brief life of Valentine has him executed on the emperor's order for refusing to deny Christ. Before his head was cut off, it says, he restored sight and hearing to his jailer's daughter. Jacobus also played on the name, saying it contained valor.
The Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 offers another popular portrait, beside a woodcut of the saint. It calls him a Roman priest of exceptional learning who converted the daughter of Asterius and forty-nine others before his martyrdom under Claudius Gothicus.
A different legend casts the priest Valentine as a quiet rebel against the emperor. He is said to have secretly performed Christian weddings in defiance of an imperial order. Husbands married this way escaped conscription into the Roman army. The tale adds that soldiers were scarce at the time, so the emperor found this a great inconvenience.
Hearts enter the story next. To remind these men of their vows and of God's love, Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment. He gave them to the persecuted Christians. This is offered as a possible origin of the hearts so common on Saint Valentine's Day.
Another embellishment says that before his execution, Valentine wrote a note to the daughter of Asterius. He signed it "from your Valentine".
Geoffrey Chaucer's poem Parlement of Foules is the key document in the argument made by Jack B. Oruch of the University of Kansas. Oruch holds that the Valentine's Day traditions described there did not exist before Chaucer, even though the poem sets them in the context of an old custom. Many of the current legends about the saint were invented in 14th-century England, notably by Chaucer and his circle. That was when the 14th of February first became tied to romantic love.
A popular idea says Valentine is a Christianized version of the god Cupid. It also says his feast replaced Lupercalia, a fertility festival the ancient Romans celebrated in February. The antiquity of this link is not established by evidence. Valentine's transformation into a partner of Cupid as sponsor of lovers was a late development, well established by 1400.
The 18th-century English antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce noticed how obscure the saint's identity was. They suggested the feast had been created to supersede the pagan Lupercalia. Academics have lately dismissed the idea, among them Oruch, Henry Ansgar Kelly of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Michael Matthew Kaylor of Masaryk University. Oruch argues that this kind of speculation, posing as historical fact, began among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Butler, author of Butler's Lives of Saints. He adds that even respectable modern scholars have repeated it.
A French manuscript illumination from the 14th century, in a Vies des Saints, shows Valentine, Bishop of Terni, overseeing the building of his basilica at Terni. Nothing in the image suggests he was a patron of lovers.
Medieval people also believed that birds paired off in mid-February, and that belief became linked to the romance of Valentine. The legends differ, yet the day is widely recognised as one for romance and devotion. On the 14th of February 1929, however, Al Capone's gang, known as The Outfit, murdered several members of Bugs Moran's rival gang in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Terni, people with epilepsy, and beekeepers all count Valentine as a patron saint. His feast has moved around the calendars of several churches.
In the Catholic Church, Valentine was in the General Roman Calendar as a simple feast until 1955. Pope Pius XII then reduced all such feasts to a commemoration within another celebration. The 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar removed even that mention, leaving him to local calendars such as that of Balzan, Malta. His commemoration remained in the 1962 Roman Missal. Those who use that edition under Pope Benedict XVI's 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum still observe it. He remains a recognised saint in the Roman Martyrology. The official Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States gives the 14th of February to Saints Cyril and Methodius.
The Church of England had Valentine in its pre-Reformation calendars. It restored his mention as bishop and martyr in the Book of Common Prayer of 1661-62, and most Anglican provinces celebrate his feast. The Lutheran calendar of saints also keeps the 14th of February.
The Eastern Orthodox Church marks the Roman presbyter Valentine on the 6th of July. On the 30th of July it observes Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna. Members of the Greek Orthodox Church named Valentinos or Valentina may keep their name day on the Western date of the 14th of February.
A work of the 5th or 6th century called Passio Marii et Marthae invented a story about how a basilica came to be dedicated to Valentine in Rome. A later Passio repeated it and added that Pope Julius I had built the ancient basilica of S. Valentini extra Portam over the saint's tomb on the Via Flaminia. The church was really named for a 4th-century tribune called Valentino, who donated the land it stands on.
That basilica housed the martyr's relics until the 13th century. They were then moved to the church of Santa Prassede, during the pontificate of Nicholas IV. The Church and Catacombs of San Valentino had been an important pilgrim site throughout the Middle Ages before that transfer. The ancient basilica afterward decayed.
In 1960 a new Saint Valentine's Church was built in Rome for the needs of the Olympic Village. It continues today as a modern parish church.
In Madrid, the church of St Anton holds remains of Valentine that have lain there since the late 1700s. The Pope gave them as a present to King Carlos IV, who entrusted them to the Piarists. Since 1984 they have been on public view in a foundation open at all times to help people in need.
Košice in Slovakia has a relic placed in the Immaculate Conception church in 1720. Nováky, also in Slovakia, once had a rare statue of Saint Valentine in the church of St. Nicholas. It was stolen in the 1990s. The head survived, and a new copy made from it was ceremoniously placed in the church in 2000.
A relic was found in 2003 in the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul at Vyšehrad in Prague. In Chełmno, Poland, a silver reliquary in the parish church of St. Mary's Assumption holds a fragment of the saint's skull. Further claims come from Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos, from Savona, from Roquemaure in France, and from St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Others are in Balzan, in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, and in Birmingham. At the Birmingham Oratory a gold reliquary bears the words "Corpus St. Valentin, M", meaning Body of St. Valentine, Martyr.
The Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin received its relics on the 27th of December 1835. Cardinal Carlo Odescalchi sent partial remains to the Very Reverend Father John Spratt, under the auspices of Pope Gregory XVI. They were a token of esteem after an eloquent sermon Spratt had delivered in Rome. The remains include "a small vessel tinged with his blood", and they have stayed in the church ever since.
On Saint Valentine's Day, many people in Ireland who seek true love make a pilgrimage to the shrine and pray for romance. A book there holds prayer requests for love written by foreigners and locals alike.
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Common questions
Who was Saint Valentine?
Saint Valentine was a 3rd-century Roman saint, a clergyman who ministered to persecuted Christians in the Roman Empire. Whether he was a priest or a bishop is uncertain. He was martyred and buried on the Via Flaminia.
When is Saint Valentine's Day celebrated in different churches?
Western Christianity commemorates Saint Valentine on the 14th of February, and the Anglican Communion and Lutheran Churches do the same. The Eastern Orthodox Church marks him on the 6th of July, and Hieromartyr Valentine, Bishop of Interamna, on the 30th of July.
How many Saints Valentine are linked to the 14th of February?
Later hagiographical sources speak of three Saints Valentine linked to the 14th of February: a Roman priest, the bishop of Interamna, and a martyr in the Roman province of Africa. The 2001 and 2004 editions of the Martyrologium Romanum list only one, a martyr who died on the Via Flaminia.
Is Saint Valentine's Day based on the Roman festival of Lupercalia?
The antiquity of that link is not established by evidence. Scholars such as Jack B. Oruch, Henry Ansgar Kelly and Michael Matthew Kaylor have dismissed the idea, which goes back to the 18th-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce.
How did Saint Valentine become connected with romantic love?
Many current legends about Saint Valentine were invented in 14th-century England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle. His role as a sponsor of lovers alongside Cupid was well established by 1400.
How did Saint Valentine die according to legend?
Legend says Valentinus was sent to the emperor Claudius Gothicus, refused to renounce his faith, and was executed outside the Flaminian Gate. According to the Diocese of Terni, Bishop Valentine was martyred in Rome on the 14th of February 269.
Where are the relics of Saint Valentine kept?
Relics attributed to Saint Valentine are kept in many places, including Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, St Anton's Church in Madrid, and Prague, Košice, Chełmno, Savona and Birmingham. Dublin received its relics on the 27th of December 1835.
All sources
58 references cited across the entry
- 1Valentine of TerniTerry Jones
- 2JournalSaint Valentine: Patron of sex and epilepsyLeonardo Palacios-Sánchez et al. — 2017
- 4BookDictionary of ChristianityJ. C. Cooper — Routledge — 2013
- 5Did Pope Gelasius create St Valentine's Day as a replacement for the Lupercalia?Roger Pearse — 2020-02-21
- 6BookThe churches and catacombs of early Christian Rome: a comprehensive guideMatilda Webb — Sussex Academic Press — 2001
- 7BookSacred TravelsLester Meera — Adams Media — 2011
- 8BookPatrons and Patron Saints in Early Modern English LiteratureAlison Chapman — Routledge — 2013
- 9Holy DaysChurch of England (Anglican Communion) — 2012
- 10BookNew Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of SaintsPhilip H. Pfatteicher — Fortress Press — 2008
- 13Calendarium Romanum Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1969), p. 117
- 14Roman Martyrology, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001, p. 141
- 15BookLiturgical Calendar for The Dioceses of The United States of AmericaAndrew Menke — United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Divine Worship — February 2025
- 16The Chronography of 354 in "Early Church Fathers" onlineRoger Pearse
- 17"XVI kalendas Martii Interamnae Via Flaminia miliario ab Urbe Roma LXIII natale Valentini" and "In Africa Valentini". In J. B. de Rossi, p. 20 (XVI KL. MAR.). See also M. Schoepflin, p. 40: "the origi
- 18BookThe Name of the Saint: The Martyrology of Jerome and Access to the Sacred in Francia, 627—827Felice Lifshitz — University Press — 2006
- 20René Aigrain, Hagiographie: Ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire, (Paris 1953), pp. 268–269; Agostino S. Amore, "S. Valentino di Roma o di Terni?", Antonianum 41. (1966), pp. 260–277.
- 21Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1983, p. 1423
- 23Martyrologium Romanum 2001, February 14, p. 141.
- 24'…whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God' – a fake quoteRoger Pearse — 2024-01-17
- 27Martyrologium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001. Index, p. 768; Saint Valentina okay finep. 390.
- 28JournalSt. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in FebruaryJack B. Oruch — 1981
- 29JournalSaint Valentine: Patron of lovers and epilepsyLeonardo Palacios-Sánchez et al. — October 2017
- 30Castleden, Rodney, The Book of Saints. 2006, p. 28.
- 32St. Valentine, the Real StoryDavid Kithcart — CBN — 25 September 2013
- 33Under the circumstances, Emperor Claudius was a detail meant to enhance verisimilitude. Attempts to identify him with the only 3rd-century Claudius, Claudius Gothicus, who spent his brief reign (268–2
- 34Nuremberg Chronicle folio CXXII recto.
- 35BookHeroes and Saints: More Stories of People Who Made a DifferenceMax L. Christensen — Westminster John Knox Press — 1997
- 36Frank Staff, The Valentine & Its Origins, 1969, Frederick A. Praeger.
- 37Henry Ansgar Kelly, in Chaucer and the Cult of Saint Valentine. 1986, p. 62, says: As Thurston has noted, no English church is known to have been dedicated to St. Valentine (Thurston, Butler's Lives,
- 38Ansgar, 1986, pp. 49–50
- 42The CalendarOctober 16, 2013
- 44BookChaucer and the Cult of Saint ValentineHenry Ansgar Kelly — Brill — 1986
- 45BookSecreted Desires: The Major Uranians: Hopkins, Pater and WildeMichael Matthew Kaylor — Masaryk University Press — 2006
- 46JournalSt. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in FebruaryJack B. Oruch — July 1981
- 47BN, Mss fr. 185. The book of Lives of the Saints, with illuminations by Richard de Montbaston and collaborators, was among the manuscripts that Cardinal Richelieu bequeathed to the King of France.
- 48BookPatrick Leigh Fermor: Noble Encounters Between Budapest and TransylvaniaMichael O'Sullivan — Central European University Press — 2018
- 50Love-seekers show up at St. Valentine's resting place in DublinIrishCentral — February 10, 2017
- 51NewsIrish priests keep a candle for Saint ValentineJurgen Hecker — February 11, 2010
- 52Radio Praha – Ostatky sv.Valentýna jsou uloženy na pražském VyšehraděFebruary 14, 2003
- 57The Holy Relics of St. Valentine Lie on Lesbos IslandFebruary 14, 2015
- 59Hippolyte Delehaye