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Introduction
Welcome

History
Pre 1400AD
1400AD-1800AD
1800AD to now
Pre-Christian mythology

Other facts
The Saints
Cards
Valentines around the world

References

History (pre 1400AD)

The origins of St Valentine’s Day as the day for celebrating love seems to have come from two separate sources and the truth of it, even if there is one single truth, has been lost, so we have to make do with stories.

Pre-dating Christianity, in the Roman Empire, there was a celebration called the "Feast of Lupercalia. This was a particularly popular festival because it involved a lot of eating and drinking, and also the drawing of lots (supposedly from an urn on the sacred altar of love) so that partners for the coming year were chosen at random.

As Christianity took hold in the Roman Empire it is likely that this very popular feast, was adopted and modified to fit with the Christian faith. It became the Saint’s Day for Valentinus who was martyred around this time for encouraging secret marriages between soldiers and their girlfriends – which was forbidden by law at this time.

The Dark Ages is called that for a reason: we don’t know much about what happened.

So, for some people, the story picks up in 1382 with Chaucer writing about romantic love and associating it with St Valentine’s Day in his "Parlement of Foules" which was written to celebrate the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England with Anne of Bohemia.

"For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [chose] his make [mate]."

The celebration was no doubt toned down over the years, taking out the feasting, the drinking and the (very non-Christian) pairing off partners by chance. But keeping the secrecy from which the modern anonymous giving of valentines is probably derived.

It has been suggested that this isn’t really anything to do with St Valentine’s Day in February because they were engaged in May, married the following January and May 2nd is the Saint’s Day for Valentine of Genoa – also birds are more likely to mate in May than February.