Okay, Valentine's Day is not medieval. (For one thing, the Middle Ages did not have chocolate--shocking, I know. Nor did they have printed cards nor cut flowers imported from foreign countries.)
An early Christian martyr named Valentinus, probably put to death under the (pagan) Roman emperor Aurelian in the third century, became an official saint in the fifth century, with his feast day February 14. (There are actually several early martyrs named Valentine or Valentinus, and they sort of got blended together.) But he got no more special attention than any other second-tier saint.
His day had no connection to romantic love for the next millennium. The earliest connection that can be found dates to the late fourteenth century, when the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer said that birds chose mates on Saint Valentine's Day. (Several other people said so too at about the time; it may have been a folk-saying.) England at this time was still using the Julian calendar, so in terms of the season February 14 was more like what we'd call late February than mid-February. The date Chaucer chose doesn't seem to have had much to do with the original martyred saint, anymore than the swallows coming back to Capistrano (California) on Saint Joseph's day, as they are supposed to do every year, creates a connection between Joseph and swallows.
February 14 continued just as one more day for the next several centuries. Probably its biggest claim to fame was the Saint Valentine's Day massacre of a whole lot of Protestant nobles by the Catholics in the sixteenth century in Paris.
But in the eighteenth century, probably inspired by Chaucer and the birds, people started seeing the date as one connected to romantic love. In England, claims were made that the feast had something to do with the Roman (pagan) fertility celebration of Lupercalia, which was held in February. An actual Christian martyr of course would have had nothing to do with something like this, but it seemed like an excellent (if fake) tradition. Soon stories were added that the martyr Valentinus had sent a thank-you note for the excellent care his jailer's daughter gave him (before his execution) and signed it "love from your Valentine." Other stories claimed he was persecuted because he was performing Christian weddings (there actually were no "Christian weddings" in the third century, but that's a separate issue).
In the nineteenth century, exchanging printed cards became common, and by the late twentieth century one was supposed to give one's beloved a card, candy, and flowers, and maybe go out to dinner. Both the restaurant industry and the candy industry thought this was a great plan, to say nothing of Hallmark Cards and the florists. One now had something to put on the candy shelf after taking off the stale Christmas candy, because it is still way too early for the Easter candy. Valentine's Day celebration has now gotten so ubiquitous that people without a "special someone" are counseled how to deal with the unavoidable despair of the day.
In honor of the day (and not in despair), I will note the one book I've written that can be called a romance, "The Sign of the Rose." It's a retelling (and expansion) of a story originally written around 1200. (Hey! we're back to the Middle Ages.)
A medieval "romance" wasn't quite what we mean by the term. It was a story full of adventure and twists and turns, but it focused more on personal interactions than did the epics (and very few people died). In addition, there tended to be a lot more women in these stories. "The Sign of the Rose" follows in that tradition, with sword fights, betrayal, a feisty heroine who saves the day, and true love. It's available both as an ebook (on all major platforms) and in paperback. Here's the Amazon link.
For more on medieval literature and so much more, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.
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