For writers and poets, it is “words, words, words,” as spoke Hamlet William Shakespeare, who wrote 154 sonnets on love, beauty, time, and immortality.
Despite the holiday’s popularity, history does not offer any definitive answers to the story of Valentine’s Day. Its origin is shrouded in mystery.
There are variations to the story. Most versions agree that Valentine’s Day is linked to the early Christian Church and Ancient Rome.
Three Different Valentines
The confusion stems from the fact that there are three different saints named Valentine who were martyred on Feb. 14. According to several sources, including the Catholic Encyclopedia at www.newadvent.org, The Huffington Post, and The Telegraph, one was a priest, the other a bishop, and nothing is known about the third Valentine.
Valentine of Rome was a priest who was executed around AD 269 and buried on the Via Flaminia. Valentine of Terni was the bishop of modern Terni around AD 197. He was persecuted and martyred during Emperor Aurelian’s reign, and also buried on the Via Flaminia but in a different location. There is no information about the third Valentine, who was martyred in Africa.
Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 St. Valentine’s Day around AD 498. The feast day of Saint Valentine on Feb. 14 was removed from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints in 1969.
There were no romantic allusions made to any of these early Valentines. Whatever distinguishing characteristics existed between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni ceased to be when a Saint Valentine was linked to romantic love in the 14th century.
Romantic Legends
The legend of Saint Valentine was recorded in the popular late medieval book, “The Legenda Aurea,” also known as “The Golden Legend,” a collection of biographies of saints.
According to the legend, Saint Valentine was a priest who was persecuted during the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II. The Roman emperor tried to convert Valentine to Roman paganism. Valentine refused and tried to convert the emperor to Christianity instead. For this, Valentine was executed on Feb. 14. According to this version, Valentine performed a miracle and healed the blind daughter of his jailer.
Later a romantic aspect was added to the story. It mentioned that Valentine wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter whom he had befriended and that he had signed it, “From my Valentine.” Other sources alleged that Valentine had fallen in love with the jailer’s daughter although there is no historical evidence to this claim.
Another romantic embellishment depicted Valentine as the priest who defied Emperor Claudius’s order that young men should not marry because he believed that single men would make better soldiers. Valentine was thus arrested for secretly performing weddings for young couples in love.
The notion of medieval courtly love was interwoven with the story of Valentine’s Day during the High Middle Ages.
Poetic Allusions to Valentine’s Day
The first written connection between romantic love and Valentine’s Day was from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules (or Parliament of Fowls) “For this was on seynt Volantynys day/When euery bryd cometh there to chese his mate.” [For this was Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.] Chaucer wrote the poem in 1382 to honor the first anniversary of the betrothal of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia.
Early romantic allusions to Valentine’s Day included a line from a poem by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his beloved wife, following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415: “I am already sick of love, my very sweet Valentine.”
Other allusions were echoed by the character Ophelia in Hamlet by William Shakespeare, John Donne’s Epithalamion, and Edmund Spencer’s The Faerie Queene.
Take heart, the poets are right. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, express your love with words!
