Valentine’s day nowadays has become a beautiful occasion to celebrate love. Some like to do it in a very romantic way as a couple and do special things they don’t usually take the time to do, while for others it may be more about gifts or about a chill quality time together depending on their love languages. Some also decide to celebrate it with a group of friends as “Galantines” to celebrate the bond between women.

Valentine’s day has changed a lot in the last centuries and is drastically different to what it started as, let’s explore the origins of the “day of love” and see how it progressively took on the meaning it has today.

Illegally bonding love

The name of the celebration originates from the tragic story of the priest Valentin de Terni.

During the 3rd century in the Roman Empire, the emperor Claudius was having a hard time recruiting young soldiers to fight for the empire to conquer new lands. He came to the conclusion that the reason was that young men were being too distracted by love and family lives so he banned all weddings.

The priest Valentin de Terni, pure of heart and independent fought his own battle to preserve that love and secretly kept marrying young couples in the Roman Empire.

Claudius eventually heard about Valentin’s illegal vows and condemned him to death and he was executed on the 14th of February.

Before the tragic ending of Valentin de Terni’s life, a legend says that while he was in jail he met the guardian’s daughter who was blind and they both instantly fell passionately in love. Before his execution, he handed her a handwritten note expressing his love for her and signed it “ton Valentin” (“your Valentine”), apparently this note miraculously made her regain her sight allowing her to read the last words of her soulmate…

This is of course a legend but it remains a beautiful story worth mentioning about the powers of true and pure love.

Replacing a pagan Roman tradition with a Christian one

In the Roman Empire on the 15th of February was held a traditional celebration for fertility called “Lupercalia” dedicated to the roman god “Faunus Lupercus”.

They would sacrifice goats for the god Lupercus in the famous cave where the twins Romulus and Remus were found (eg: the founders of Rome), they would then shed the goats’ skin and wear it for the festivity as well as make whips from it.

They would then go back down into the town and run after young women whipping them to apparently “give them more fertility”. With this tradition, there were of course many depraved excesses as you can imagine…

Until then, although the Roman Empire was catholic, all popes had been too scared to prohibit the debauched celebration because they knew how fanatic some Romans were about it…

The Pope Gelase the Ist however with courage and faith decided to forbid all christians to participate in that event at the end of the 5th century.

He decided to replace it with a Christian celebration dedicated to love that would be held the day before on the 14th of February in hommage to the martyr Saint Valentine with the will to purify the citizens with a more peaceful and graced festivity.

This event marks the historical beginning of Valentine’s Day in our calendars.

The first Valentine’s Day love letter

During the 14th century in Great Britain, the English believed that February 14th was the day when birds paired beginning the season of love. Poets inspired from it to write stories about love and that signifying date.

The Duke Philip of Orleans was at the time held captive in London after France lost the battle of Agincourt. He inspired from the texts he read there and the English beliefs about the 14th of February being a day of bondage to write a love poem to his wife still in France and sent it for it to arrive in time for that date.

This was the first Valentine’s day love poem ever written.

When he finally was able to go back to France, he started the tradition of writing love poems and letters on Valentine’s Day in the royal court.

From love letters to Valentine’s Day cards

The tradition of writing poems and letters continued and was internationalised. Very popular in the 19th century, it developed into a way of confessing one’s secret love by writing love notes to “His” and “Hers” Valentine’s.

At the beginning of the 20th century in America, handwritten love notes gradually were replaced by little printed Valentine’s cards often representing angels, hearts and flowers.

These printed cards were the first time something was sold for Valentine’s day starting the era of commercialism for the festivity of love.

Later on, chocolate brands such as Whitmans were the first brands to use Valentine’s Day as a way to sell more chocolates transforming sweet treats into a physical manifestation of one’s love to be gifted on that special date.

During the mid 50s, all kinds of brands were influenced and used Valentine’s as a commercial date to make profit (just as Christmas). It became international… and the rest is history.

Although Valentine’s day now has much more of a commercial aspect to it, it doesn’t take anything away from the fact we have a date on our calendars dedicated to love. Whether it be with our families, friends, as a couple or even to ourselves, we all need more love in this world so why not use this date as an excuse to spread love and express our feelings of appreciation towards the people we are closest to.

I hope you enjoyed learning all about the history of this famous date. Let me wish you a:

_{HAPPY VALENTINE’S !!}

All my love,

Jamila Xxx