Where do our Valentine’s traditions come from?

Valentine’s Day falls every year on 14^th February and is a day where we are all encouraged to show our love and appreciation of our nearest and dearest, but where did the tradition come from? Let’s find out!

The origins of Valentine’s Day, like most of our holidays and festivals, is rooted in paganism. It began as a fertility festival known as Lupercalia, which involved running around naked and whipping young ladies to improve their fertility. Thankfully, that part of the festival was abandoned when it was taken over by the Christian church. The early church recorded that several Christian martyrs, all called Valentine, died on 14^th February. The day was officially named as St Valentine’s Day in 496 AD by Pope Gelasius, back then though, it was a Christian feast day rather than a day about romantic love. That didn’t start until the 1300s and was inspired by the writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, however, records show that the oldest surviving Valentine’s card was sent by Charles, the Duke of Orleans in 1415. He was a French noble who was imprisoned in the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt and wrote a poem and note to his wife, even using the phrase “my very sweet Valentine.”

Historians do know that Valentine’s Day as we know it now was firmly established in British tradition by the 1600s as a reference to it appeared in Shakespeare’s Hamlet which began being performed in 1601. Sending love notes to your betrothed, or beloved if you’d not yet made the leap, seems to have been standard practice from 1797. Books to help hapless young gentleman with their love poems and sentiments were even published! By the 1840s, when the postal service introduced a more affordable way of sending letters, the idea of Valentine’s cards became more popular. Printers all over the country began making and selling mass produced Valentine’s cards and prudish Victorians, who were too worried about a scandal, began using them to send anonymous love declarations. This growing popularity with Valentine’s Day led to companies such as Cadbury’s capitalising and the rise of gift giving as part of the holiday.

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