It's Chaucer's Fault

If you're among the legions of men who, best intentions aside, will find themselves frantically picking through a ransacked section of pink-hued greeting cards at your local drugstore tonight, you might be prompted to mutter a curse in the name of St. Valentine and his stupid romantic "holiday."

As though you didn't have enough to remember between anniversaries and birthdays. Smack in the middle of February, just as you've recovered from running the winter holiday gauntlet, it blindsides you. Roses and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and little winged cherubic archers...who is responsible for this nonsense?

Who was St. Valentine, exactly? Well, that's the kicker. Nobody is completely sure.

Dances with wolves

Valentine (or, in the Latin of its day, "Valentinus," from the word valens meaning strong or powerful) was a popular name in the 3rd through 5th centuries. This also happens to be the timeframe during which Christianity was developing from the religion of a sometimes-persecuted minority into the dominant faith of the Roman Empire.

Before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity officially legal in the year 313, a number of men named Valentine were credited with Christian martyrdom by dying for their faith. Among these, it seems, was at least one Christian clergyman who was executed on February 14, sometime in the second half of the third century.

Fast forward about two hundred years, to the year 495. It was nearing the end of a terrible century for Rome. The city had been sacked twice by barbarians and had lost perhaps three-quarters of its peak population of around one million people. And the previous year, 494, had been particularly bad. The city and its surrounding countryside had been beset by epidemics and poor harvests.

To help wipe the slate clean, the senatorial class of the city decided to throw the late 5th century equivalent of a pep rally. February was the perfect time to do it. The month is named for the Latin verb februare, which means "to purify." From the 13th to the 15th of the month was the traditional feast of the Lupercalia, during which naked young men, known for the day as the Luperci ("young wolves"), would run through the streets with thongs of goatskin and whip the bare backs or (more commonly) outstretched hands of willing women. Through this ritual, the health of both the women and the land would be ensured for the coming year.

There was just one problem. Christianity, far removed from its days as an underground religion, was now the official religion of the state, and its leaders had little time or tolerance for pre-Christian traditions. The bishop of Rome, a man named Gelasius, was shocked to see these allegedly Christian senators sponsoring an openly pagan celebration.

Gelasius wrote a long, angry letter explaining why the Lupercalia was a terrible idea and forbade the festival from ever being held in the city again. At about the same time, perhaps to seal the deal, he declared February 14—smack in the middle of the Lupercalia—a Christian feast day in honor of the nearly-forgotten Valentine.

How obscure was Valentine? Aside from knowing the date of his death, it seems even Pope Gelasius barely knew who he was. Valentine was just one of a group of new saints canonized by Gelasius (St. George, of English "St. George and the Dragon" fame, was among the others). In proclaiming these new saints, Gelasius referred to them as those "whose acts are known only to God."

This information led some earlier historians to conclude that the romantic associations of Valentine's Day were somehow a remnant of the Lupercalia purification rite. We can't completely rule this idea out, but it doesn't seem likely. If aspects of the Lupercalia festival survived in any form, Mardi Gras seems a slightly better bet. We'll shelve that discussion for another day.

St. Valentine's Day is for the birds

So, we can't blame the ancient Romans, or the Catholic Church.

In fact, there doesn't appear to be any evidence tying connotations of love or romance to Saint Valentine until the late 14th century, almost 900 years after Pope Gelasius created the February 14 feast day.

It was then that Geoffrey Chaucer, sometimes called "the father of English poetry," wrote his Parliament of Fowls, which is to say, birds. In that poem, Chaucer dreams of birds gathering together on a hilltop with the goddess Nature to choose their mates at the beginning of springtime:

Now welcome, summer, with thy sun soft

That has shaken off winter's storms

And driven away the long night's black!

Saint Valentine, that are full high aloft,

Thus sing small birds for thy sake...

[This article is not meant to teach Chaucer, so I ask the indulgence of any Chaucerian scholars as I butcher his Middle English poetry in the interest of clarity.]

Now, as you may have noticed, February 14 isn't exactly the time of year that we're inspired to "welcome summer and its soft sun." We've still got plenty of winter storms and long, black nights before the birds start singing their love songs in earnest.

This was almost certainly the case in 14th century England, too, where Chaucer wrote this poem. So, what gives? What made Chaucer think of February 14 as the start of the season of courtship?

Well, perhaps he didn't. In early 1373, a few years before writing that poem, Chaucer traveled to Genoa, Italy. And Genoa, it turns out, has a St. Valentine of its own. He was the first Christian bishop of the city, and he died of natural causes on May 3, early in the fourth century. St. Valentine of Genoa is a bit of a footnote in Genoa today, but his early May feast day was a pretty big deal in the Middle Ages.

Early May, of course, is very much associated with love and springtime. May 1, May Day, is an ancient holiday that is still enthusiastically observed in Europe today. Catholic ceremonies that  have their origins in these traditions.

According to one theory, Chaucer's poem may have been intended as a sort of anniversary present to King Richard II, in whose court he served and who became engaged to Anne of Bohemia on May 2, 1381.

The hallmark of a commercial holiday

Regardless of which Saint Valentine was meant by Chaucer, both his early imitators and his later disciples seem to have ignored the incongruous weather descriptions and assumed he meant the more widely-known Valentine canonized by Pope Gelasius. Thus began centuries of love poems and love stories tied to both February 14 and Saint Valentine, who became a sort of romantic superhero for distressed lovers in later medieval and Renaissance English literature.

By the late 18th century, English men were apparently under enough pressure to send love notes on February 14 that a whole industry began emerging to cater to them. Valentine's Day cards were a staple of the holiday by the 1850s. Today, Valentine's Day cards are second only to Christmas cards among the seven billion greeting cards sold in the United States each year.

None of which is to say that you should be feeling good about picking out a Valentine's Day card at the last possible second. But look at the bright side. You could be naked and running around with a goatskin thong.

Happy Valentine's Day, gentlemen.