Introduction: The Whip and The Rose
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| The story of the first valentine ever celebrated |
To understand the modern phenomenon of Valentine’s Day—a twenty-billion-dollar global industry of red roses, Hallmark cards, and prix fixe dinners—we must strip away the lace doilies and the chocolate boxes. We must look past the polite courtship of the 19th century and the commercial explosion of the 20th. We must go back to a cave in ancient Rome, where the walls were stained not with red paint, but with fresh blood.
At First Everything, we study the "Day One" of human traditions. The first Valentine’s Day was not a celebration of romance; it was a desperate ritual of survival and purification. It began with the skinning of goats and the whipping of women, evolved through the execution of a defiant priest, and was finally codified by a prisoner of war writing poetry in the Tower of London.
This is the exhaustive archive of February 14th. It is a timeline that traces the holiday’s evolution from the feral rituals of Lupercalia to the courtly love of the Middle Ages. This is the story of how a day of martyrdom became the day of love.
The Pre-History: The Wolf and The Whip (Lupercalia)
Long before Saint Valentine was born, the Romans celebrated Lupercalia from February 13th to 15th. This was not a festival for the faint of heart. It was a chaotic, alcohol-fueled cleansing ritual intended to ward off evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility.
The Ritual of the Luperci
The archive notes that the festivities began at the Lupercal, the cave where legend says the She-Wolf (Lupa) nursed the founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. A dedicated order of Roman priests, the Luperci, would gather to sacrifice goats (for fertility) and a dog (for purification).
But the "First" elements of the holiday appear in what happened next. The priests would cut the hides of the sacrificed goats into long strips, dipped in blood. These strips were called februa (from which the month name "February" is derived, meaning "purification").
The Lottery of Flesh
The priests would run through the streets of Rome, slapping women with the bloody goat hides. Far from hiding, women would line up to be struck, believing the touch of the februa would make them fertile and ensure an easy childbirth.
There was also a "matchmaking" element—a proto-Tinder of the ancient world. According to some archival accounts, the names of young women were placed in a large urn. The city’s bachelors would each draw a name and become paired with that woman for the duration of the festival (and often longer). This lottery system is the earliest recorded instance of "randomized dating" in Western history.
The Martyr: The Man Who Defied an Empire (269 AD)
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| St. Valentine |
The transition from pagan blood ritual to Catholic feast day hinges on a shadowy figure: Valentinus.
The First Everything archive must clarify a historical confusion: The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. But the legend that captured history belongs to a priest in 3rd Century Rome.
The Ban on Marriage
Emperor Claudius II (known as Claudius the Cruel) had a problem. He needed soldiers to fight Rome’s endless wars, but he believed that single men made better warriors than those with wives and families. In a draconian move, Claudius outlawed marriage for young men.
The First Act of Defiance
Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied the Emperor. He began performing marriages for young lovers in secret, in the shadowy corners of Rome. When Claudius discovered this treason, he ordered Valentine arrested and beaten to death with clubs, followed by beheading.
The First Note?
While likely apocryphal, the legend states that while in jail, Valentine fell in love with his jailer’s daughter (whom he had miraculously cured of blindness). Before his execution on February 14, 270 AD, he allegedly wrote her a letter signed, "From your Valentine." Whether fact or folklore, this phrase has echoed for 1,700 years.
In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius I officially declared February 14th as St. Valentine’s Day, effectively cancelling the pagan Lupercalia and replacing the goat whips with the veneration of a martyr. However, for centuries, the day remained purely religious, devoid of romantic love.
The Architect: Geoffrey Chaucer (1382)
This is the most critical "First" in the archive. For nearly a thousand years after the Saint’s death, there is zero historical record of February 14th being associated with romance.
The man who invented "Valentine’s Day" as we know it was not a Saint, but a poet. Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Parlement of Foules
In 1382, to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer wrote Parlement of Foules (Parliament of Fowls). In this dream-vision poem, Chaucer links the feast day of St. Valentine to the mating season of birds.
The crucial lines read:
- "For this was on seynt Volantynys day
- "Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make."
- ("For this was on Saint Valentine's Day / When every bird comes there to choose his mate.")
The Cultural Shift
Before this poem, St. Valentine was the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers. After this poem, the aristocracy of England and France began sending love notes during February. Chaucer did for Valentine’s Day what Charles Dickens later did for Christmas—he manufactured a mythology so potent that the public accepted it as ancient truth.
The First Artifact: The Prisoner in the Tower (1415)
We move from poetry to physical proof. The oldest surviving "Valentine" in existence is not a Hallmark card, but a poem written by a prisoner of war.
The Battle of Agincourt
In 1415, the French Duke of Orleans, Charles, was captured by the English at the Battle of Agincourt. He was taken to London and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He would remain there for twenty-five years.
The Letter
Lonely, defeated, and isolated, Charles wrote a poem to his wife, Bonne of Armagnac, who was waiting for him in France. The manuscript, now held in the British Library, contains the lines:
- "Je suis desja d'amour tanné
- Ma tres doulce Valentinée"
- ("I am already sick of love, / My very gentle Valentine.")
The Tragedy
This "First Valentine" carries a heavy weight. Charles was not writing about the joy of love, but the pain of separation ("sick of love"). Tragically, his wife Bonne died before Charles was ever released. He never saw his "gentle Valentine" again. The tradition of sending cards began not with a celebration of union, but with a lament of distance.
The Industrial Revolution: Esther Howland (1840s)
For centuries, Valentines were handwritten notes exchanged only by the wealthy. The democratization of the holiday—the shift to the commercial juggernaut we know today—began in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 1840s.
The Mother of the Valentine
Esther Howland, a student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, received an elaborate English Valentine and became obsessed with the design. Her father owned a large book and stationery store, giving her access to supplies.
She began importing paper lace and floral decorations from England. While primitive Valentines existed in America, Howland created the First Mass-Produced Valentine Empire. She set up an assembly line of women in her home, creating a "factory of romance."
The Economic Shift
She expected to sell $200 worth of cards in her first year. She sold $5,000 (roughly $170,000 today). By hiring a fleet of women and standardizing the production of lace, ribbons, and "scrap" pictures, Howland created the infrastructure for the modern greeting card industry. She is the reason you can walk into a drugstore today and buy a card for $5.
Timeline of the First Valentine
- 753 BC (Approx): The foundation of Rome and the establishment of the Lupercalia festival (Feb 13-15), involving goat sacrifice and purification rituals.
- 270 AD: The execution of the priest Valentinus by Emperor Claudius II on February 14th.
- 496 AD: Pope Gelasius I officially establishes the Feast of Saint Valentine, suppressing the pagan Lupercalia.
- 1382: Geoffrey Chaucer writes Parlement of Foules, comprising the first recorded association between St. Valentine's Day and romantic love.
- 1400: The "High Court of Love" is established in Paris on Valentine's Day. It dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women based on their poetry reading skills.
- 1415: Charles, Duke of Orleans, writes the oldest surviving Valentine poem to his wife while imprisoned in the Tower of London.
- 1601: William Shakespeare mentions Valentine's Day in Hamlet ("To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day..."), cementing its place in popular culture.
- 1797: The Young Man’s Valentine Writer is published in Britain, a book of pre-written verses for young men unable to compose their own poetry.
- 1847: Esther Howland begins the mass production of Valentine cards in Massachusetts, launching the modern commercial industry.
- 1868: Cadbury (UK) creates the first "Fancy Box"—a decorated box of chocolates in the shape of a heart—specifically for Valentine's Day.
- 1913: Hallmark Cards offers their first Valentine's Day cards.
Conclusion: The Evolution of Desire
The First Everything archive reveals that Valentine's Day is a palimpsest—a manuscript written over again and again. It began as a primal scream for survival in the caves of Rome, transformed into a solemn religious observance for a beheaded martyr, softened into a poetic game for the courts of Europe, and finally calcified into a commercial engine of lace and chocolate.
It is a holiday that has survived the fall of the Roman Empire, the Black Death, and the Industrial Revolution. Whether it is a bloody strip of goat hide or a gilded card from a drugstore, the core human drive remains the same: the desperate need to be chosen.
Archivist's Note
While we focus on the romance, the Archive contains a darker "First" from the Victorian Era: The "Vinegar Valentine."
In the mid-19th century, it became popular to send anonymous, insulting cards on Valentine's Day. These were cheap, garish caricatures sent to people the sender despised—mocking their looks, their profession, or their singleness. Millions were sent. It was the world's first instance of "Trolling" or "Cyber-bullying," done via the postal service.
Archival References
- Chaucer, G. (1382). The Parlement of Foules. (The literary origin of the holiday).
- Ovid. (8 AD). Fasti. (Detailed description of the Roman Lupercalia rites).
- British Library Archives. MS Royal 16 F II. (The manuscript containing Charles, Duke of Orleans' poems).
- Butler, A. (1756). Lives of the Saints.
- Schmidt, L. E. (1995). Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays. Princeton University Press.
- Stafford, P. (2017). The Dark Origins of Valentine's Day. NPR History.