Will the Real St. Valentine Please Stand Up

It’s Valentine’s Day, and though it has become a secular holiday in the most banal of ways, let us not forget that its roots are in the Catholic calendar of the communion of saints. It is the feast day of Saint Valentine, though which Saint Valentine exactly are we talking about is the big question.

As in many cases with saints, they often became cults and got put on the rolls before their true existence could be verified (a few child saints allegedly martyred by Jews comes to mind). But the feast of St. Valentine—whoever he or they were—was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those “… whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God.” In other words, “We don’t know who this is either.” In fact, “Saint Valentine” was taken off the Roman calendar of saints because of this discrepancy, as were other saints of questionable existence, like Saint Christopher (but according to Catholic sources, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still venerate them, it’s just that their official feast day is off the calendar. Venerate away, if you will).

There is one Saint Valentine mentioned in the official Roman Martyrology whose feast day falls on February 14, and this was the one who, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s day, became associated with romantic love.

The Golden Legend, a medieval bestseller on the lives of the saints written by Jacobus de Voragine around 1260, offers his version of a Saint Valentine who was martyred by Emperor Claudius in 280 for refusing to deny Christ. St Valentine is credited with restoring the sight and hearing of his jailer’s daughter before he was beheaded. Later versions have him writing notes to her and signing it, “love, Valentine,” where, presumably, we get our Valentine’s cards. This myth might have been started by Sir Hallmark, but it is considered a great deal older.

In Chaucer’s time, we see the flowering of Courtly Love that began in earlier centuries. February 14th is supposed to be the day that the birds begin mating and in the medieval mind, they joined mating to a saint’s feast day and rather invented many of the legends that have come down to us.