There were many St Valentine’s throughout Italy in the early centuries. A name that’s Latin origins meant ‘strong’ or healthy’ was popular in the third century. Valentine’s Day celebrates the two that were martyred on February 14th, 273, and each has very romanticised stories.
The first was said to be of Valentine helping couples marry in secret under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, who believed conscriptions to the army were affected by men’s strong attachment to their wives and families. When he was found out, he was sentenced to death on February 14th.
The second was of Valentine in the jail, where he befriended his jailor's daughter and cured her of her blindness. The pair fell head over heels in love (literally love at first sight). When discovering the date of his sentencing, he left her a letter signed ‘your Valentine’, which inspired others to do the same.
Valentine's Day as a day of love also came with the Christianisation of Rome. Christians were trying to stamp out the pagan festivals, one of which was Lupercalia on February 15th, where women wrote their names on clay tablets which men drew from jars, pairing up couples who often stayed together until the next year or fell in love and married. The festival took place to honour the she-wolf who took care of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. It was seen as a racy and sexy festival, done to please the god of fertility and the oncoming of spring, with new babies and new beginnings. Valentine’s Day became a much less overt way of celebrating this love.
Historically, February 14th hasn’t always been associated with romantic love. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a poem called ‘Parliament of Fowls’ in the Middle Ages, which started the trend. The line ‘For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird comes to choose his mate,’ marks the emergence of the Valentines we know today.
Etymologists say that around the inception of Valentines ‘v’ and ‘g’ could be used interchangeably, and Valentines itself means ‘lover of women’ – so this February 14th celebrate both Valentines and Galentines!