L'histoire de la Saint-Valentin

Introduction

[[valentines-day]] — observed on 14 February — is one of the most commercially important holidays of the year, with the United States alone spending over $24 billion annually on cards, flowers, chocolates, and jewellery. Yet the holiday's origins are surprisingly murky: there is no single founding moment, but rather a convergence of a Roman fertility festival, several martyred saints, a medieval poet's imagination, and 19th-century printing technology.

Lupercalia: The Roman Ancestor

The Roman festival of Lupercalia, observed from 13 to 15 February, is the oldest layer in Valentine's Day's history. Dedicated to Lupercus, a god of fertility, and connected with the founding myth of Rome — the she-wolf (lupa) who suckled Romulus and Remus — Lupercalia was a boisterous purification and fertility rite. Priests called Luperci sacrificed a goat and a dog, then smeared the blood on the foreheads of two young men, who ran through the city streets clad only in strips of the sacrificial goat hide (februa), striking women they encountered with the strips. Women eagerly sought these blows, believing they conferred fertility. A lottery in which men drew the names of women as sexual partners was also said to be part of the festival, though historians debate the evidence for this. Pope Gelasius I abolished Lupercalia in 496 CE and replaced it with a feast day for the martyred saint Valentine — though whether this was a deliberate substitution or coincidental timing is disputed.

The Martyred Saints Named Valentine

There were at least three Christian martyrs named Valentine recognised by the early Church, and it is impossible to say which (if any) is the 'real' St Valentine. The most commonly cited candidates are:

Valentine of Rome

A priest in Rome martyred around 269 CE under Emperor Claudius II. Legend holds that Claudius had banned marriage for young men, believing unmarried soldiers made better fighters. Valentine defied the ban by secretly performing Christian marriages and was subsequently executed on 14 February.

Valentine of Terni

A bishop of Terni also said to have been martyred in Rome in the 3rd century, possibly the same person as Valentine of Rome or a distinct figure. He is associated with healing and blessing a young couple before his death. Neither legend has solid historical documentation; both are likely later embellishments designed to give a romantic character to an existing feast day.

Chaucer and the Literary Invention of Romantic Valentine's Day

The decisive step in associating Valentine's Day with romantic love was taken not by the Church but by a poet. Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parliament of Fowls' (c. 1382) contains the first known association of Valentine's Day with courtly love: 'For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's Day / Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make.' (For this was on Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird comes there to choose his mate.) Whether Chaucer was referring to 14 February or to an early spring feast day is disputed, but the association between Valentine's Day and mating birds (and, by extension, human romantic pairing) was enormously influential. By the 15th century, English and French poets were writing Valentine poems as a recognised literary genre. The oldest surviving written Valentine is a poem written by Charles, Duke of Orléans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt.

The Victorian Valentine Card

The exchange of handwritten Valentine notes was common among the English middle classes by the 18th century. The industrial revolution transformed this into mass commerce. Esther Howland, a Mount Holyoke graduate from Worcester, Massachusetts, began producing lace-trimmed Valentine cards in 1847, earning up to $100,000 per year (equivalent to over $3 million today). The Penny Post, introduced in Britain in 1840, made anonymous Valentine cards affordable for the working class. By the 1870s, the British were sending 1.5 million Valentine cards per year.

Commercialisation in the 20th Century

The American greeting card industry — led by Hallmark, which began producing Valentine's cards in 1913 — standardised the holiday's iconography: red hearts, Cupid, roses, and doves. Hershey's and Cadbury promoted chocolate boxes; by the mid-20th century the florist and jewellery industries had made Valentine's Day one of their most important trading dates.

Global Celebrations and Resistance

Valentine's Day is now observed — or at least commercially promoted — in over 100 countries. In Japan, a unique tradition developed: women give chocolate to men on 14 February; men return white chocolate (or 'white day' gifts) on 14 March. In South Korea, there is an additional 'Black Day' on 14 April, when those who received nothing eat black bean paste noodles in commiseration. The holiday has also attracted political resistance. Iran and Pakistan have periodically restricted Valentine's celebrations on cultural and religious grounds, viewing them as Western impositions on Islamic values.

Conclusion

Valentine's Day illustrates how completely a holiday can be reshaped by cultural forces it could never have anticipated. Its founders — a possibly mythical Roman priest, a pagan fertility rite, a medieval English poet — would be astonished by the $24 billion industry their legacies helped create.

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