Most people think of Valentine’s Day as a day of love. But where did the holiday originate?

While some of the origin of Valentine’s Day remains a mystery, it has been celebrated for a very long time. Dating as far back as ancient Rome with the festival of Lupercalia; Lupercalia is thought of as a way for ancient Romans to celebrate the she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus, who were the mythological founders of Rome, and the fertility god Lupercus.

The festival was started by members of the Luperci, Roman priests. They would gather at the sacred cave that Romulus and Remus were believed to be cared for by a wolf. At this gathering the festival goers would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. They would then strip the goat hide into stripes and dip them into the sacrificial blood. The priests then would take the goat hide to the city where they would gently slap women and fields of crop, believing it would bring fertility to the coming year. 

While Lupercalia is one rendition of Valentine’s Day’s storied past, there is also the legend of St. Valentine, which is the origin more people have heard. St. Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. Emperor Claudius II decided that single men were better at war as they had nothing to lose and there would be more young men to serve his army. St. Valentine thought this was an injustice and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When it was discovered that St. Valentine was doing this, Claudius ordered that Valentine be put to death.

There are several different variations of St. Valentine’s story. One version is that St. Valentine was killed for trying to help Christains escape the cruel Roman prisons, where they were being tortured. Another reason why Valentine was imprisoned is that he was in love with a young girl, who is rumered to have been the jailer’s daughter. She visited him while he was confined and before his death he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” which was the start of an expression still used today.

The oldest known Valentine is a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans. It was written to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. A professor at the University of Kansas, Jack B. Oruch argues that the first person to link Valentines to romance was the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his poem The Parlement of Foules. This is believed to later inspire Shakespeare to follow his lead and assist in giving Valentines the romantic connotation that it is today. As more time went on during the 14th and 15th centuries, people started to associate Valentine’s day with love more and more, connecting the day to the “lovebirds” that appear during early spring.

Valentine’s day as we know it now is a day to celebrate the ones we love through gifts and cards. While it’s not an official or national holiday anywhere, it is celebrated by many all over the world in countries like the United States, Mexico, Australia, and South Korea just to name a few. Although it is uncertain that Valentine’s day will ever become an official holiday, it will certainly continue to be celebrated by many.