Valentine's Day

• 1. Introduction

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  Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14 every year, but the holiday carries far more history than a single date. Behind the greeting cards and chocolate boxes lies a story that begins with a Roman martyr in the third century, winds through medieval poetry and royal courts, and eventually splits into dozens of separate traditions across every continent.

  The martyr at the center of it all was called Valentine of Rome, a priest executed in the year 269 and buried on the Via Flaminia. His flower-crowned skull still sits in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome today. That skull connects a violent story of religious persecution to a holiday now associated with red roses and paper hearts. How did those two worlds connect? Who decided that a martyred priest should be the patron of lovers? And why do schoolchildren in the United States exchange nearly a billion cards every year in his name?

• 2. The Martyr Behind the Holiday

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  Valentine of Rome was a priest who was martyred in 269 and buried on the Via Flaminia outside the city. A second figure, Valentine of Terni, became bishop of Interamna (present-day Terni in central Italy) and was said to have been executed during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian in 273. He too is buried on the Via Flaminia, though at a different location. Professor Jack B. Oruch of the University of Kansas noted that abstracts of the acts of both saints were found "in nearly every church and monastery of Europe."

  A third Valentine appears in early martyrologies under the date of February 14, martyred in Africa with several companions. Nothing further is known about him. The Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledged this, and in the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feast day of Valentine was removed from the General Roman Calendar on the grounds that, apart from his name, nothing is known of him except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.

  Relics attributed to the saints spread widely. The Church and Catacombs of San Valentino in Rome held the relics until the pontificate of Nicholas IV (1288-1292), when they were transferred to the church of Santa Prassede. A relic claimed to be the head of Valentine of Terni was preserved in the abbey of New Minster in Winchester. The Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin holds relics that draw pilgrims each February 14, who leave prayer requests in a book kept at the shrine.

• 3. Legends and Embellishments

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  Bede's Martyrology, compiled in the eighth century, records the story of Valentine being interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was reportedly impressed by Valentine and attempted to persuade him to convert to Roman paganism to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert the emperor instead. Before his execution, the account says he healed Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer Asterius. The jailer's forty-six member household, including family members and servants, came to believe in Jesus and were baptized.

  A later embellishment to the legend, added according to Henry Ansgar Kelly in the 18th century, claims that on the evening before his execution, Valentine wrote the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to the now-sighted daughter of Asterius and signed "Your Valentine." The expression "From your Valentine" was later adopted by modern valentine letters. Both American Greetings and The History Channel have published this version of the legend.

  George Monger has challenged a separate popular embellishment: that Valentine secretly performed Christian weddings for Roman soldiers forbidden to marry by Emperor Claudius II in order to build a larger army. Monger writes that this marriage ban was never historically issued, and that Claudius II actually told his soldiers to take wives after his victory over the Goths. The legend of Valentine cutting hearts from parchment to remind soldiers of their vows is recorded as a possible origin for the use of hearts on the holiday, though it too cannot be confirmed.

• 4. Chaucer and Courtly Love

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  Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, written in 1382, is widely regarded as the first recorded association of Saint Valentine's Day with romantic love. The poem portrays a parliament of birds gathering to choose their mates. Chaucer wrote it to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England to fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia. In the poem he wrote, in Middle English: "For this was on seynt Valentynes day / Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make."

  Henry Ansgar Kelly observed that Chaucer may not have had February 14 in mind at all. He may have intended the feast day of Saint Valentine of Genoa, an early bishop who died around AD 307 and whose feast was probably celebrated on May 3. A treaty for Richard II and Anne's marriage was signed on the 2nd of May 1381, a date closer to May 3 than to February.

  Jack B. Oruch noted an additional complication: on the Julian calendar in use in Chaucer's time, February 14 fell on the date now called February 23, a time when some birds had genuinely begun mating in England. The Parliament of Fowls refers to a supposedly established tradition, but no record of any such tradition predates Chaucer himself.

  Three other poets wrote about birds mating on Saint Valentine's Day around the same years: Otton de Grandson from Savoy, John Gower from England, and a knight named Pardo from Valencia. Chaucer most probably predated all of them, but the difficulty of dating medieval works means it is not yet certain which of the four may have influenced the others.

• 5. Cards, Commerce, and Mass Production

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  The Charter of the Court of Love, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France at Mantes-la-Jolie in 1400, describes elaborate festivities attended by royal court members, including a feast, poetry competitions, jousting, and dancing. No other record of this court exists, and none of those named in the charter were actually present at Mantes except for Charles's queen, Isabeau of Bavaria.

  The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orléans to his wife while he was held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. The earliest surviving valentines in English appear in the Paston Letters, written in 1477 by Margery Brews to her future husband John Paston, addressing him as "my right well-beloved Valentine."

  In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man's Valentine Writer, a guide containing scores of suggested sentimental verses for those who could not compose their own. In 1835-60,000 Valentine cards were sent by post in the United Kingdom, despite postage being expensive. Sir Rowland Hill's postal reforms and the 1840 invention of the Penny Black postage stamp changed everything: 400,000 valentines were sent in just the first year after its introduction. The new anonymity of mailing cards led to a sudden appearance of racy verse in what was otherwise a prudish Victorian era. Charles Dickens referred to the resulting industrial output as "Cupid's Manufactory," with over 3,000 women employed in making cards.

  In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father ran a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English Valentine received from a business associate of her father. She built her business by importing paper lace and floral decorations from England. In 1868, the British chocolate company Cadbury created Fancy Boxes, a heart-shaped decorated box of chocolates, for Valentine's Day.

• 6. A Holiday Divided

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  Valentine's Day looks entirely different depending on where you are. In Japan, Morozoff Ltd. introduced the holiday in 1936 with an advertisement aimed at foreigners. By the 1950s, Japanese confectionery companies were promoting heart-shaped chocolates, and the custom evolved so that only women give chocolates to men on February 14. Japanese chocolate companies make half their annual sales during this period. In the 1980s, the Japanese National Confectionery Industry Association launched a campaign to create a "reply day" on March 14, called White Day, on which men return the favour.

  In South Korea, the sequence extends further: women give chocolate to men on February 14, men give non-chocolate candy on White Day, and on April 14, called Black Day, those who received nothing on either date go to a restaurant to eat black noodles and mark their single status. The 14th of every month carries a love-related designation in Korea, from Candle Day in January to Hug Day in December.

  In Brazil, February 14 is not celebrated at all because it falls too close to Carnival, which can run from early February to early March. Instead, Brazilians celebrate Dia dos Namorados on June 12, the day before Saint Anthony's day, a saint known for blessing young couples. In Slovenia, Saint Valentine was historically a patron of beekeepers and pilgrims and a saint of spring rather than romance; the day of love there was traditionally March 12, Saint Gregory's day, or February 22, Saint Vincent's day.

  In Bangladesh, Valentine's Day was first introduced by Shafik Rehman, a journalist and editor of the newspaper Jaijaidin, in 1993. Rehman, acquainted with Western culture from studying in London, highlighted the holiday through his publication and is called the "father of Valentine's Day in Bangladesh." Before his efforts, February 14 in Bangladesh was observed as an anti-authoritarian day.

• 7. Resistance and Reinvention

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  In Saudi Arabia, in 2002 and 2008, religious police banned the sale of all Valentine's Day items and instructed shop workers to remove any red items, on the grounds that the day is considered a Christian holiday. In 2012, more than 140 Muslims were arrested for celebrating the holiday and all red roses were confiscated from flower shops. By 2018, however, Sheikh Ahmed Qasim Al-Ghamdi, a former president of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, declared that Valentine's Day is not haram and is compatible with Islamic values.

  In Iran, a greeting card sent by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar to his wife during a European trip in the second half of the 19th century is preserved in Iranian museums as an early connection to the holiday. Since 2009, certain practices tied to Valentine's Day have been banned by law, and Iran's Law Enforcement Force prosecutes distributors of goods bearing Valentine's Day symbols. In 2021, the Prosecutor's Office of Qom stated it would prosecute those who disseminate anti-cultural symbols like those of Valentine's Day. Despite this, the holiday remains widely popular among young Iranians.

  Romania has responded differently. Several nationalist organizations, including Noua Dreaptă, condemned Valentine's Day as imported Western kitsch and promoted Dragobete, a spring festival from parts of Southern Romania, as a local alternative. Dragobete is named after a figure from Romanian folklore said to be the son of Baba Dochia. Its date varied historically by region but is now commonly observed on February 24.

  In India, Hindu and Islamic traditionalists have characterized the holiday as cultural contamination from the West. In February 2023, the Animal Welfare Board of India appealed to Indians to celebrate February 14 as "Cow Hug Day" instead. According to Rhea Mogul of CNN, the initiative was later retracted after it prompted a wave of internet memes and jokes about the importance of the consent of cows before hugging them. Meanwhile, the U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent in the United States each year, and when cards exchanged in school activities are included, that figure rises to 1 billion, making teachers the single largest group of recipients.