Gilded Age History of Valentine’s Day

Valentine was a priest in the days of the Emperor Claudius. He was a good, kind priest, and treated the common people with much consideration. Above all, he was gentle to them when they came to him about matters of the heart, and more than once he brought together couples estranged by a harsh word. In this way, Valentine came to be greatly loved… when the anniversary of his birth came around, they met secretly and gave each other little gifts. They called them “Valentines,” and the young women, in token of love for him and each other, took the garters off their knees and exchanged them, garter for garter. After ten years they canonized Valentine and placed his name along with those of the saints. And ever after that, when the day came around, they called it Saint Valentine's day.

Do you know who Saint Valentine was, and how his name came to be perpetuated through the ages? Or did you not know that there was a Saint Valentine at all? And did you suppose that a Valentine of commerce was only a sporadic growth, ready to die when custom had tired of it. Valentines originated with the saint after which they were named. They began nearly 1800 years ago, when Saint Valentine was alive, and have continued ever since, taking different forms in the different ages.

Valentine was a priest in the days of the Emperor Claudius. He was a good, kind priest, and treated the common people with much consideration. Above all, he was gentle to them when they came to him about matters of the heart, and more than once he brought together couples estranged by a harsh word. In this way, Valentine came to be greatly loved.

In those days the Emperor was lord of all, and little did he like it when others became favorites of the people. Consequently Claudius, when he saw Valentine walk through the streets with a crowd of people following and praising him, became very jealous, and sent word to the priest that he must leave the city of Rome.

But Valentine had no intention of going. He meant to stay and work there as long as the Lord spared him, and when he prayed nightly to his God in the heavens he prayed for the people who suffered so much from the oppression of the Emperor. And so the popularity of Valentine grew.

When Claudius saw that his command had no effect except to make the people like the priest the more, he determined to do away with him. He ordered him to be put to death, and one fine day, when the people arose and sought for him, he was gone. He had been beheaded by order of the Emperor.

Then the people were very sad. “He is gone, but we can observe his birthday,” they said. And so when the anniversary of his birth came around, they met secretly and gave each other little gifts. They called them “Valentines,” and the young women, in token of love for him and each other, took the garters off their knees and exchanged them, garter for garter. After ten years they canonized Valentine and placed his name along with those of the saints. And ever after that, when the day came around, they called it Saint Valentine's day.

Now, during his lifetime Saint Valentine had been very happy in love affairs, and had always assisted those who were in love troubles. Consequently the young men grieved for him as much as the young women, and when Valentine’s day came around they sent their sweet hearts little gifts, behaving with as much freedom as the strict customs of those days allowed.

From that time on the custom of observing Saint Valentine's day has grown, and now this gift day is almost a holiday. It is celebrated in the social world by gatherings and in the trade world by a great variety of pretty tokens, offered for personal gifts. And so Saint Valentine is not forgotten, though so many hundred years have passed since then.

It would be impossible to tell how the custom of honoring Saint Valentine will change in the next hundred years. Today you see the shops decked out with pretty tokens, satin trifles and all sorts of sweet-smelling gifts. There are verse books written also for the day, and the windows are filled with trifles, costly and otherwise.

The etiquette of a Saint Valentine gift has changed somewhat in the last 1000 years. At the beginning of the ninth century a Valentine was a proposal of marriage, and consisted of a herd of cattle for the very wealthy swain and a slain sheep for the poor one. Lovers in the warm countries sent gifts of wine, and in the Orient they sent perfumes, for there is no country to which the fame of Saint Valentine has not traveled.

The most popular gift today is a figure picture. There is no handsomer token that a box upon which a pretty girl stands, with arms outstretched, juggling hearts and money bags. In looking upon her Valentine gifts, the maiden of Valentine’s day, 1898, can not do better than pick a moral from the fame of Saint Valentine. He chose love as his theme, and lives forever in the heart, while unworthy Croesus and his wealthy Roman associates, who looked upon gold, not wisely but too greedily, are held afar off as objects of scorn. —Harry Germaine, 1898

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia