The history of Valentine’s Day: Lupercalia to Hallmark - The Stute (2024)

By Evan Papageorge on February 10, 2023

Within the next week, many students on Stevens campus will become engrossed in their love for their special someone — or lack thereof. February 14, more commonly known as Valentine’s Day, is a time of love, heats, fancy chocolate, and cute depictions of Cupid as a dawdling little baby with a heart bow and arrow. However, the history of Valentine’s Day goes back centuries, even millennia. From ancient festivals to modern Midwest America, Valentine’s Day has evolved. The true origins of Valentine’s may surprise you.

Although the birthplace of Valentine’s Day is questionable, an agreed point to start is with ancient Rome. Around the same time of year as Valentine’s Day, on February 13-15, the Romans would celebrate the Feast of Lupercalia. The Feast of Lupercalia celebrated fertility rather than romantic love. The celebration of this feast was somewhat gruesome. The men would sacrifice a dog and a goat and then whip women with the hides of the sacrificed animals. In an interview with NPR, Yale religious studies professor Noel Lenski says, “The Roman romantics ‘were drunk. They were naked.” In addition to the violent acts of the event, the men would choose a random woman’s name from a jar, then be gifted that woman as a lover for the festival — sometimes longer.

Past the disturbing and violent Feast of Lupercalia, the ancient Romans most likely are the source of the name “Valentine’s Day.” In the 3rd century C.E., Roman Emperor Claudius II ordered the execution of two men on February 14, of different years, but both were named Valentine. When the Catholic Church gained power, these men’s martyrdom was immortalized with a celebration of them: St. Valentine’s Day.

A few centuries later, Pope Gelasius I confusingly combined the Feast of Lupercalia and St. Valentine’s Day to quell pagans and peacefully force citizens into Christendom. This new festival was much tamer than that of the Romans: more of a drinking party than a sacrificial feast, though love and fertility nature remained. Things became more confusing with the Norman holiday of Galatin’s Day, or “Love of woman” day, with Galatin’s pronounced the same way as Valentine’s.

Over the centuries since the Roman age, Valentine’s day has become more docile. Renaissance entertainment made it a sweeter holiday, with Shakespeare romanticizing it in some of his famous plays. Across England and Europe, handmade cards given to one’s lover or romantic partner became a tradition of romantic love across the Middle and early modern eras. With the introduction of Europe to the New World, Valentine’s Day came as well. Everything was simple until a small company out of Kansas City, MO, began printing Valentine’s Day cards. The company: Hallmark.

Today, some say Valentine’s Day has become too commercialized. However, some sociologists say if people did not want Valentine’s Day to be about buying things, they would not. Whether true or not, Valentine’s Day is here. Whether celebrating gifting a loved one expensive flowers, jewelry, or chocolate or celebrating the lesser known SAD, Single Awareness Day.

For more information, please see this article from NPR. However you celebrate, enjoy your Feast of Lupercalia, St. Valentine’s Day, or just Valentine’s Day.

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