The history of Valentine’s Day is an interesting one that many people tend to forget when it comes to all of the card writing and gift-giving of the holiday.

The original celebration of Valentine’s Day was most likely the pagan holiday Lupercalia which had many traditions to bring fertility to the crops and women. On Lupercalia women would put their names on a piece of paper and put them into a big urn then men would each take turns drawing from the urn and they were matched up with the women whose name they drew for the duration of the festivities. These matches often ended with marriages.

From Lupercalia, it became a day honoring St. Valentine. Many legends about St. Valentine and other Saints had similar names but most often Saint Valentine is described as a Roman martyr that was beheaded. One story says that he continued to perform marriages when they were outlawed by Emperor Claudius II. Another legend says he cured a blind girl who was the daughter of his jailer while he was in prison by sending her a letter and signing it, “from your Valentine,” which has become a common way of ending Valentine’s Day cards, and after he wrote the letter he was beheaded and became the martyr St. Valentine.

In the Middle Ages, it became more common for people to send cards and tokens of their affection to loved ones. It continued to grow to be more widely recognized from there and by the middle of the 18th century people would send love letters on Valentine’s Day just like we do today.

Now we send the people we love gifts big or small, ranging from hand written cards to roses and chocolates. Through all the years the one thing every celebration of the day has in common is love.