VALENTINE'S DAY: A FESTIVE OCCASION FOR LOVE AND ROMANCE
Even though the festival of Lupercalia survived the early spread of Christianity, it was eventually banned by Pope Gelasius, who made February 14 the feast of St. Valentine because it was "not Christian." But it wasn't until a long time later that February 14 became known as a day to celebrate romantic love. It was widely held in medieval France and England that February 14 marked the beginning of the birds’ mating season, lending further credence to the notion that February 14 should be set aside as a day for lovers to express their affection for one another. In his poem "Parliament of Foules," written in 1375, the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer first mentioned Valentine's Day as a day of romantic celebration: "For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day / Whan every foul cometh there to choose his mate."
Greetings for Valentine's Day can be traced back to the Middle Ages, but the first written ones didn't appear until after 1400. This poem is the oldest Valentine known to exist today. It was written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife from the Tower of London in 1415 after he had been captured at the Battle of Agincourt. The greeting is now part of the British Library's collection of handwritten materials in London, England. A few years later, it's speculated that King Henry V commissioned a writer by the name of John Lydgate to pen a valentine for Catherine of Valois.
Who Is Cupid?
Cupid is often shown on Valentine's Day cards as a cherub with no clothes on who shoots love arrows at couples who aren't paying attention. However, Eros, the Greek god of love, is where the Roman god Cupid's origins can be traced. Various accounts of his birth claim that he is the son of Nyx and Erebus, Aphrodite and Ares, Iris and Zephyrus, or even Aphrodite and Zeus. Other accounts place him in the lineage of Ares and Nyx (who would have been both his father and grandfather).
Greek Archaic poets described Eros as a handsome immortal who played with both God’s and people's emotions by using golden arrows to arouse love and leaden ones to sow aversion. He wasn't first depicted on Valentine's Day cards as the cheeky, fat child he'd become until the Hellenistic era.