History of Saint Valentine’s Day

I figured with Valentine’s Day coming up, it was time to post an earlier homeschool history lesson my kids had this year, the history of St. Valentine’s Day (from Mystery of History 2*).  It’s not what I thought it was.

(This post has affiliate links marked with an *)

What I’d previously thought the history of St. Valentine’s day was

I’d always heard, and the kids had heard the Adventures in Odyssey episode about St. Valentine’s Day (from Eugene Returns! (Adventures in Odyssey)* ), and that emphasizes Valentine, and his marrying people and it being all about love. (Cue kissy face and sappy music).

The Adventures in Odyssey episode glosses over Valentine’s martyrdom, and emphasizes the marrying people part.  But like many things in history, there’s a bit more to it.

 

I figured with Valentine’s Day coming up it was time for a bit of a homeschool Valentine’s Day lesson AND a history lesson, and while we’re at it learn a bit of church history to find out why we celebrate Valentine’s Day.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Saint Valentine history lesson resources

Hi, Future Ticia 2024 here, I’m updating this, and figured I’d add in the other resources we used over the years.

• Mystery of History 2
• Eugene Returns! (Adventures in Odyssey)

Let’s see what videos did I have from our last time going through the history cycle.

I seriously need to put my Church History playlist in chronological order. Currently it seems to be in whatever order I found the random videos.

My prior knowledge of who Saint Valentine was

I’d always heard, and the kids had heard the Adventures in Odyssey episode about St. Valentine’s Day (from Eugene Returns! (Adventures in Odyssey) ), and that emphasizes Valentine and his marrying people and it being all about love. (Cue kissy face and sappy music).

The Adventures in Odyssey episode glosses over Valentine’s martyrdom and emphasizes the marrying people part (for obvious reasons, it’s aimed at elementary kids).  But like many things in history, there’s a bit more to it.

Who is Saint Valentine?

The first problem comes because there is more than one Saint named Valentine.  Actually, there are two from Roman times.  The next problem comes from the lack of information at that time.  Valentine quite probably lived during the 3rd century, a time rife with problems and conflicts and it’s amazing the Roman empire survived it.

Here is the frequently accepted history of Saint Valentine.

Valentine was a bishop (or priest) of the church.  He believed strongly in the sanctity of marriage and would often marry couples before the man went off to war.  This became a problem when the local governor decided no one was to marry (probably because of a coming war and the need for more soldiers), another variation says the governor was not allowing people of different stations to marry (no slaves marrying freed men, no freedmen marrying patricians).  More than likely this was a short-term ban, but we don’t know (back to that lack of documentation).  Valentine ignored the rule.

He kept marrying people in secret and eventually was caught and imprisoned.  While in jail he was kind and loving to all.  The jailer’s daughter was blind and treated as worse than a slave.  Valentine healed her blindness and that is his first recorded miracle.

Eventually, Valentine was tried for breaking the law and martyred.

 The History of St. Valentine’s Day and its Roman roots

Around February 14 was a Roman holiday, Lupercalia, and the pope at that time wanted to create a holiday the Christians could celebrate in the middle of a cold winter without celebrating a Pagan holiday.  Valentine, the aforementioned saint had been martyred on February 14, so he encouraged Christians to celebrate those who had been martyred for their faith.  So for the first little while Valentine’s Day was celebrating those who had been killed for their faith and Christian fellowship.

The rise of romanticism and Valentine’s Day

After Constantine and the fall of the Roman empire a while later the religion was quite firmly associated with St. Valentine.  At that time people also started to associate it with the start of many birds’ mating season, noticing birds were pairing up around then, and people were starting to think of Spring and pairing up themselves, and the belief slowly moved from Christian fellowship to romance (okay not so slowly).

Fast forward a few centuries and we hit the Victorian era.  Now that’s a time period for people who like being in love, that’s what it was all about, big sappy Valentines, lots of lace and frippery, and long sighs.

And that is where our history of St. Valentine’s Day comes from.

Saint Valentine statue used with permission, it’s cropped and the overlay was added