There were two – or maybe three!
Cynics tend to think of Valentine as materialistic hype imported via Hallmark from America. In fact Valentine as the Saint of Romance owes his dubious but world-wide popularity to Britain.
He has a lot in common with Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus) Bishop of Smyrna (died 343 AD) who has been mercilessly transmogrified into Father Christmas. Both believed in intrinsic good. And both were real people whose integrity has been commercialized beyond belief.
Here’s a brief ‘Valentine’ history:
The first Valentine honoured on February 14 is Valentine of Rome, a priest martyred about AD 269 and buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome, and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.
Second is Valentine of Terni who became bishop in about AD 197 martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different place to Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni.
The Catholic Encyclopedia speaks of a third Saint Valentine in early martyrologies under the date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.
Their feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of one of these saints are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Second Vatican Council calendar. February 14 is also celebrated as St Valentine's Day in other Christian denominations; for example, the Anglican Communion.
There are no romantic elements in the original medieval biographies of any of these men. And, by the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the 14th century, distinctions between the Valentines of Rome, Terni and Africa were utterly lost.
The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in ‘Parliament of Fools’ (1382)
by Geoffrey Chaucer, who also wrote the ‘Canterbury Tales’:
‘For this was on Saint Valentine’s day
When every bird comes to choose his mate.’
Other famous literary references to Valentine are made by Shakespeare’s Ophelia in ‘Hamlet’ and John Donne, who also wrote ‘No Man is an Island’.
In 1797, a British publisher issued ‘The Young Man's Valentine Writer’, which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unequal to composing his own. Paper Valentines became so popular in England in the early 19th century that they were assembled in factories. These often included expensive ribbon and real lace. The practice of sending ‘Valentines’ then spread around the British Empire and, subsequently, the world.
What Valantine, or Santa Claus for that matter, make of this travesty we will never know.
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