I haven’t written about any major holidays or festivals yet in my books. Probably because I am not confident enough that I will get it as close to correct as possible. I have written about marriage, which I did do quite a bit of research on and then chose my favorite ceremony type to match Esther & Favian’s story. I do have plans to write about the Christmas holidays in the next year or two in a medieval story.
As we are approaching Valentine’s Day, I’m beginning to wish I had realized just how far back this holiday goes. I would have found a way to squeeze it into the book I’m about to write THE END on. But I do have a character I considered naming Valentine in The Galahad Men series. (I have good reason for the name.) But I believe I will make his “spy name” Valentine.
Below you’ll find some of my favorite tidbits of research while reading on the history of Valentine’s Day.
Who was Saint Valentine? (And what does he have to do with chocolate hearts?)
Information found here: Valentine’s Day History, Origin, Why We Celebrate, and More (realsimple.com)
Not much, it turns out. St. Valentine’s Day was a feast day in the Catholic religion, added to the liturgical calendar around 500 AD. The day was commemorated for martyred saints named—you guessed it—Valentine. Differing legends celebrate three different saints called Valentine or Valentinus, but since very little was known about these men and there were conflicting reports of the St. Valentine Day story, the feast day was removed from the Christian liturgical calendar in 1969.
But even though not much is known about the real history of the Saint Valentines on whom the holiday is based, the legend of Saint Valentine has several tellings. One legend says that Saint Valentine refused to convert to paganism and was executed by Roman Emperor Claudius II. Prior to his execution, he was able to miraculously heal the daughter of his jailer, who then converted to Christianity along with his family. Another legend says a bishop called Saint Valentine of Terni is the true namesake of the holiday; this Saint Valentine was also executed.
But according to others—and this is how Saint Valentine became affiliated with a love-focused holiday—Saint Valentine was a Roman priest who performed weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry, because of a Roman emperor’s edict decreeing married soldiers did not make good warriors and thus young men could not marry. This Saint Valentine wore a ring with a Cupid on it—a symbol of love—that helped soldiers recognize him. And, in a precursor to greeting cards, he handed out paper hearts to remind Christians of their love for God.
Because of this legend, Saint Valentine became known as the patron saint of love. The Saint Valentine prayer asks Saint Valentine to connect lovers together, so that two become one, and the couple remembers their devotion to God.
While the Saint Valentine story set the groundwork for establishing the day as a holiday for romantic love, what truly solidified the connection between Saint Valentine and love was a poem by medieval author Geoffrey Chaucer in 1381, which historians consider the origin of the “modern” celebration of Valentine’s Day, where we celebrate our romantic partnership with one other person.
Why do we celebrate Valentine’s Day?
Chaucer lived in the Middle Ages, the era of courtly love, when broad, romantic statements of devotion—poems, songs, paintings—celebrated partnership. By the end of the 15th century, the word “valentine” was being used to describe a lover in poems and songs of the day, and in the 18th century, a book called The Young Man’s Valentine Writer was published in England. By the mid-19th century, mass-produced paper Valentine’s Cards were being created, and Valentine’s Day as we know it was born.
