St. Valentine

Priest and Martyr

    Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith, ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterward to be beheaded, which was executed on the 14th of February, about the year 270,
    Pope Julius I is said to have built a church near Ponte Mole to his memory, which for a long time gave name to the gate, now called "Porta del Popolo", formerly Porta Valentini.
    The greatest part of his relics are now in the church of Saint Praxedes (Santa Prassede - across from Saint Mary Major or Santa Maria Maggiore).

    His name is celebrated as that of an illustrious martry in the sacramentary of St. Gregory, the Roman missal of Thomasius, in the calendar of
Fronto, and that of Allatius, in Bede, Usuard, Ado Notker, and all other Martyrologies on this day.
(Rev. Alan Butler)

    In St. Valentine's Acts it is recorded that he was both a priest and a physician and that he cured a youth who suffered from fits. Tradition says that for this reason he was invoked against epilepsy. His symbols are a sword, by which he was beheaded and a sun since it is recorded that he gave sight to a blind girl, the daughter of his jailer.

St. Valentine's Acts are commended by the famous and learned hagiographer Godfrey Henschen.

* * * * * * *

The custom of sending "Valentines" on the Feast of Saint Valentine

is based on the medieval belief that birds begin to pair on the 14th of February.

* * * * * * * * *

Today is celebrated the feast of two saints named Valentine. . .

The first was a priest in Rome said to have been arrested under Claudius the Goth. Appearing before the emperor, he openly confessed his faith, and when questioned by him about Jupiter and Mercury, declared that they were shameless and contemptible characters. He was then committed to a magistrate named Asterius, who had an adopted daughter who was blind. Valentine cured her and converted at the same time Asterius and his family. Learning this, the emperor had him beaten and later decapitated on the Flaminian Way.

In the 4th century, Pope Julius I built a church in honour of this martyr; in the 7th century, Pope Honorius I restored it and it became a very popular centre of pilgrimage.

(Omer Englebert; THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS; trans: Christopher and Anne Fremantle; New York, 1951-1960)

* * * * * * * * *

                       Saint Valentine's Day

                     The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day undoubtedly had
                     their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France
                     during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second
                     month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer's Parliament of
                     Foules we read:

                          For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
                          Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

                     For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and
                     as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers' tokens. Both the
                     French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain
                     allusions to the practice. Perhaps the earliest to be found is in the 34th and 35th
                     Ballades of the bilingual poet, John Gower, written in French; but Lydgate and
                     Clauvowe supply other examples. Those who chose each other under these
                     circumstances seem to have been called by each other their Valentines. In the
                     Paston Letters, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes thus about a match she hopes to
                     make for her daughter (we modernize the spelling), addressing the favoured
                     suitor:

                          And, cousin mine, upon Monday is Saint Valentine's Day and every
                          bird chooses himself a mate, and if it like you to come on Thursday
                          night, and make provision that you may abide till then, I trust to
                          God that ye shall speak to my husband and I shall pray that we
                          may bring the matter to a conclusion.

                     Shortly after the young lady herself wrote a letter to the same man addressing it
                     "Unto my rightwell beloved Valentine, John Paston Esquire". The custom of
                     choosing and sending valentines has of late years fallen into comparative
                     desuetude.

                     Herbert Thurston
                     Transcribed by Paul Knutsen

                                       The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV
                                    Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company
                                    Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
                                 Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
                                 Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org

* * * * * * * * *