Valentine's day, Chaucer and... commercialization?

14th of February is celebrated as Valentine's day worldwide. It is widely acclaimed as a day to celebrate love and romance. But it originated as the Christian St. Valentine's feast day. Now, who is this St. Valentine?

Origin of St. Valentine's Feast

Well, lots of Christian martyrs were named Valentine. The St. Valentine honoured on 14th February is in fact not one of them, but two (or maybe three?) of them— Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Valentine of Rome was a Christian priest, martyred in the Roman Empire on that day in 269 AD. Valentine of Terni was a Christian bishop, who was martyred on the same day in 273 AD. Both these priests may have been the same person as they both were said to have married off Christian couples in secret, which was banned at that time. It is no surprise then that this is the day to celebrate love out of all those other Valentine feast days. Early records of martyrs also record a third Valentine under the same date who was martyred in Africa along with a few companions but nothing else is known about him. Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, included this day to the Christian Calendar of Saints in honour of Valentine of Rome. 

Is St. Valentine a patron of love?

St. Valentine of Rome was not only the patron saint of happy marriages and engaged couples, but also epilepsy, beekeeping and many others. But how did it become a day for the tradition of courtly love, not 'International Epilepsy Awareness Day' or 'The Bee Thanking Day' from a purely Christian commemoration feast?

Why is love the focus?

To answer 'how?', we must first ask the question— 'when?'. If we trace back the significance of the date, we start to find romantic love associated with it, since the 14th century. In fact, it might be the "Father of English Literature", Geoffrey Chaucer who linked St. Valentine's feast with the romantic lovey tradition in his book Parliament of Foules which was published around 1375. Now that we know the answer of 'when?',  we come to answer the 'how?'. 

How do you 'invent' a holiday?

Geoffrey Chaucer's literature often involved putting his characters in a world with fictional historical context that was portrayed as real. A similar case may have occurred with the day in question. In his Parliament of Foules, he linked St. Valentine's day with the tradition of love— the courtly and romantic kind. And thus a tradition was born, or at least, popularized. The lines that mention Valentine's day as a already established ritualistic day (which it was not) when translated into modern English reads:

  "For this was on Saint Valentine's Day

   When every bird comes there to choose his match

   (Of every kind that men may think of!),

   And that so huge a noise they began to make

   That earth and air and tree and every lake

   Was so full, that not easily was there space

   For me to stand—so full was all the place."

   (Parliament of Foules, Chaucer, Geoffrey)

This poem was written to celebrate the one year engagement anniversary of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. Chaucer inserted a fictitious social tradition out of the blue so effortlessly that it became real. In fact, around this year, other poets also made references to Valentine's day as a day of love, though Chaucer was the first of them. 

Which Valentine are we talking about?

What is very interesting is that, though Valentine's day is mentioned by Chaucer, no specific date is referenced. It may be possible that Chaucer had not been talking about Valentine of Rome but some other Valentine— perhaps St. Valentine of Genoa whose feast was celebrated on 3rd May. In the poem, the birds choose a partner and this maybe based on the mating and nesting of some birds typically found around England during Spring. Spring's timeframe has changed from Chaucer's time. If we account the adjustment of calendars, February 14th would fall on what is now February 23rd at which time the birds' mating and nesting would commence. From this, we can assume that Chaucer was in fact referencing the feast day of St. Valentine of Rome and thus 14th February. 

Globalisation

So we know by now— St. Valentine was/were multiple Christian martyrs and Chaucer basically invented Valentine's day. But was it the one or two lines of reference in some middle age English poem enough to transform Valentine's day into a global celebration? 

Valentine

For its survival as an annual tradition, valentine poetry may be to blame. Who doesn't get wowed by poetry written as a testament of love to them by their own lover? Valentine poems written to please the partner date back to the 15th century. We can find this type of poetry in none other than Shakespeare's plays. For example, in Hamlet we find a rueful Ophelia uttering the words:

    "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,

   All in the morning betime,

   And I a maid at your window,

   To be your Valentine."

    (Hamlet, 'Act IV, Scene 5', Shakespeare, William)

In literature, we find many authors use the legend of the Valentine's day in their works. It might have been a trick to lure in a crowd because love never grew out of style. In modern times too, we see valentine poems gain much popularity. The cliche "Roses are red, violets are blue..." poem has its origin in a collection of English nursery rhymes called Gammer Gutton's Garland (1784).

 

Commercialization

However, the globalisation of Valentine's day can be said to be a product of commercialization and industrialisation. Though we see formal valentines appear in the 1500s, printed valentines first appeared in the 1700s. A few printers had started making a limited amount of 'mechanical valentines' which were short printed verses and sketches but paper valentines gained popularity after the publication of The Young Man's Valentine Writer in 1797. This was a book compiling suggested sentimental poetry to aid a lover who is unable to write his own. After this, paper valentines became so popular that they had to be assembled in factories. In the UK, following the postal reforms, reduction of postal fare and invention of postal stamp in 1840 caused a huge boom in the number of valentines being sent, with 400,000 of them sent in 1841 alone. 

How did it become global?

Upto this point, valentine's day was chiefly an English tradition. After 1847, the first mass produced valentines in America were introduced by American Esther Howland. The tradition of greeting card exchange developed from there on. 

The natively English tradition of Valentine's day which spread to the US, found its way into most cultures of the world due to colonization, global trade and cultural exchange.

 

More commercialization

19th century saw handwritten cards give way for the mass produced printed cards. Further commercialization of the Valentine's day took place, slowly transforming the simple tradition of exchanging greeting cards into a tradition of exchanging gifts like jewelry, chocolate, flowers along with the cards. It became a booming industry and it continues to grow now with estimates showing that half of the population in UK spent £1.9 billion for Valentine's day related expenses in 2015 alone.

  

Final thoughts

Valentine's day was a minor Christian commemoration feast but it grew into a social, cultural, commercial, global celebration of romantic love. And now there is a whole industry that depends on it. What a journey the day has gone through to reach the status it has now! The history of the day is as adventurous as love itself. Though we must always celebrate love of oneself and one another, if there had to be a specific day for its celebration, there can be no other day more perfect than Valentine's day.