Lots of people don’t know the history of Valentine’s Day. It didn’t exactly start off being a holiday full of chocolate, flowers, and romance… It is the feast day of the Roman priest St. Valentine. Here is a version of his story.

Valentine lived during the 3rd century A.D. under the reign of the emperor Claudius ll. Rome was going through a tough time. The empire had split into three competing states, while invasion threatened all around. The emperor made the not very popular decision of forbidding the marriage of young people, thinking his soldiers would fight better since they wouldn’t become worried about what would happen to their wives and children if they died. Valentine performed their weddings in secret. Also, according to legend, he would comfort imprisoned Christians by sending them hearts cut out of parchment. Eventually however, he was discovered and put into prison. He was sentenced to be beaten and then beheaded. While in prison, he healed his jailer’s daughter of blindness, and before his execution was carried out, he wrote her a farewell letter signed, “Your Valentine.”

St. Valentine’s Day became associated with romantic love on account of the poet Geoffery Chaucer, 14th century, who wrote a love poem that involved February 14th to honor a certain engagement anniversary. Other poets soon caught on, and love and romance became directly linked to Valentine’s Day. This of course is not entirely unjust because St. Valentine did marry off all those couples. But his feast day can also be linked to love in a different way. St. Valentine’s own story is a love story. He was willing to lay down his life for his neighbors.

Fun fact: Approximately 1 billion dollars worth of chocolate is purchased in the U.S. for Valentines Day!