Why the History of Valentine’s Day Is So Complicated

Valentine’s Day is widely known today as a celebration of romantic love, complete with roses, chocolates, and heartfelt cards. However, a tangled web of history that includes medieval poets, ancient rituals, multiple saints, and commercial innovation lies beneath the modern glitter and gifts. Unlike holidays with clear origins, Valentine’s Day is complicated because it blends myth, religion, literature, and consumerism in ways that make its true beginnings hard to trace.

One of the main reasons Valentine’s Day has such a confusing backstory is because it's unclear exactly which “Valentine” the holiday is supposed to honor. The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine (or Valentinus), all of whom were martyred. One legend tells of a priest named Valentine who served during the Roman Empire in the third century. Because he believed that single soldiers performed better in battle, Emperor Claudius II had outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and continued to marry young couples in secret. He was executed for this. In yet another account, a bishop who was also killed for his faith is mentioned, as is the claim that Valentine assisted Christians in escaping the harsh Roman prisons. These stories blend over time, making it difficult to know who the real “Valentine” was—or if he was even a single person.

In ancient Rome, the month of February was already associated with love and fertility, long before Valentine's Day had any Christian connection. The festival of Lupercalia, celebrated on February 15, was a pagan ritual intended to purify the city and encourage fertility. It involved a number of strange and even unsettling fertility rituals, including the pairing of men and women through a lottery and animal sacrifices. Christian celebrations were frequently attempted by the Church as Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius I declared February 14 as St. Valentine's Day, probably with the intention of Christianizing Lupercalia. However, the two traditions did not completely disappear; rather, they became historically intertwined. Even after it was officially added to the calendar, Valentine’s Day didn’t have anything to do with romantic love for centuries. That changed in the Middle Ages, especially in England and France, where people believed that February 14 was the start of the mating season for birds. This idea inspired poets to connect the date with human romance. One of the first writers to do this was Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales. In his poem Parliament of Fowls, Chaucer linked St. Valentine’s Day with courtly love, describing it as the day birds (and lovers) choose their mates. This poetic connection helped shape the holiday into a romantic one, especially among the nobility and later the general public.

In Europe and the United States, the custom of expressing love on Valentine's Day became more widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. People began exchanging hand-written notes, known as “valentines.” The Industrial Revolution made it possible to mass-produce these cards, and by the 1900s, companies like Hallmark had turned the holiday into a booming business. Valentine's Day evolved over time from a celebration of literary and religious traditions to one marked by candy, flowers, dinner dates, and advertising campaigns. To put it succinctly, the origins of Valentine's Day are a complex mix of Roman rituals, Christian martyrdom, medieval poetry, modern consumerism, and other influences. The holiday as we know it today has been shaped by each layer added over the centuries. Far from being a simple celebration of love, Valentine’s Day reflects how traditions can shift and merge through time—making it one of the most fascinating and complex holidays in our calendar.