The History of Valentine's Day

There will apparently be more than 1 billion Valentine's Day cards sent this year worldwide making it only second to Christmas in the card sending league table. I guess Huntingdon will have its fair share of these cards bought and sent. Cards. Flowers, chocolates and jewellery have become ubiquitous with the festival of love and romance which is a far cry from the pre-Christian origins of nudity and whipping. So what is the history of Valentine's Day and some key facts from it's past.

The ancient Rome celebrated the 13th, 14th and 15th February as a fertility festival called Lupercalia. In perhaps an early form of IVF young men would strip naked and use whips made from goat or dog skin to whip the backsides of women in the attempt to make them more fertile.

Two early Christian martyrs were said to have been killed on 14th Feb, Valentine of Terni, (AD 197) and Valentine of Rome (AD 289). There is no actual evidence to substantiate these days but in

AD 496 Pope Gelasius declared 14th February to be St Valentine's Day as a Christian Feast Day most likely to rebrand the old but still popular pagan Lupercalia festival.

Geoffrey Chaucer is probably the first writer to link St Valentine's Day and romantic love. When writing about the engagement of King Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, writing "For this was on St. Valentine's Day/ When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate." However it is a little early in the year for birds to be mating in England so it is questionable that Chaucer's Valentine's Day was actually the 14th February. Probably much later March or May being more likely.

The first recorded love note sent on Valentine's Day is of Charles, the Duke of Orleans who writes to his beloved whilst imprisoned in the Tower of London after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

Shakespeare helped to popularise the idea of Valentine's Day and love in Hamlet and Ophelia's lament "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,/All in the morning betime,/And I a maid at your window,/To be your Valentine."

In England in the later part of the 18th century the passing of Valentine's Notes became very popular with these early ones being made of lace and paper, suggested rhymes and massages were published and with the postal service becoming more affordable. By the early 19th century cards had become so popular that factories started to mass produce them.

In 1913 Hallmark produce their first Valentine's Day card and perhaps the modern era of Valentine's Day as a worldwide commercial event truly began.

Currently the UK shows its romantic side, as the average spend on Valentine's Day was £2.17 – the highest of all the categories tracked and ranks only behind Christmas and Mother's Day for the most sales of cards in the UK.

Photo: Esparta