Be My Valentine

What do epilepsy, Chaucer, and Birmingham have in common? As February once again hurls Valentine’s Day at lovers and singles alike, our editor-in-chief sets out to trace the curious history of cards, courtship, and confection that have long defined love’s most performative holiday — and, naturally, to argue against feeling anything but marvellous on this most prescriptive day of love.

Little thought has been given to the evergreen “Be my Valentine” — apart from the nauseous realisation every February 14 that the public humiliation ritual in the form of carnations and cut-out cardboard hearts is once again upon our fragile middle-school souls. Do you find the skull photo accompanying this piece off-putting or indeed, in bad taste? Well, I have taken it upon myself to draw attention to the fact that this is, apparently, (if we are to blindly believe the world’s most powerful institution, which is, you know, quite risqué business at the best of times), part of the remains of Saint Valentine. So, would you like to be someone’s skull with a flower crown?

If you are anything like me and detest all publicly-enforced holidays that have been unleashed upon the public like Frankenstein’s monster, then you will probably also dislike Valentine’s Day. “Every day is Valentine’s Day if you’re in love,” is what I usually say in defence of rejecting participation in the cheap chocolate exchange — which I do mean seriously — but probably does more to showcase the fact that I haven’t ever lasted longer in a relationship than two years. It pains me to say, therefore, that having looked into probably the only saint still widely known outside of religious circles today (besides the original Queen Mum, Jesus’ Mama Mary), I must now confess, in true Catholic fashion, that the history of Valentine’s Day is a lot more intriguing than I thought. Let’s buckle up lovers, because this rabbit hole is as messy as any good love story and includes flogging, epilepsy, she-wolves, beekeeping, and a church in Birmingham (of all places).

For starters, like any righteous religious story, we can’t say for certain that Saint Valentine even existed, so take everything that follows with a pinch of salt. However, if there is one clear marker that something fishy is going on in history, it's that only one official narrative exists.

Bear this in mind when considering the “truth” behind Saint Val, because there are lots, and I mean lots of different stories around this mystery man and the capitalist wet dream of a “holiday.”

Perhaps the most prominent of these narratives is that Valentine was a Roman priest that married young couples in secret around 270 A.D., after Roman Emperor Claudius banned all marriages, believing soldiers fought better without wives or families. Or was it simply to prevent the increase of Christian marriages? Details, details. In any case, in true Friar Laurence fashion, he did it anyway, and was decapitated for his deeds. As legend goes, he sent a round of letters to his friends and confidantes before his execution, reminding them to keep their marriages sacred and closed each letter with the words, “Remember your Valentine.” He then proceeded to have his head chopped off on February 14. Ah, the romance.

Following close on his heels was the other Saint Valentine, the Bishop of Terni, the story of which took place around seventy years later. Unlike the Roman Valentine, Terni did not have much to do with love at all, and was instead the patron saint of epilepsy and — somewhat unexpectedly — beekeeping. Invited to Rome by the philosopher Crato, he was asked to heal his son Chaeremon who suffered from a physical deformity that forced him to keep his head between his knees (I promise I’m not making this up). Long considered incurable, he was actually healed after Valentine rejected payment and spoke to Crato through the night about faith, and then prayed over the boy instead. The miracle led Crato, his family, and several students to convert to Christianity, including the son of the Roman prefect Placidus, a conversion that would ultimately seal Valentine’s fate because, you guessed it, he was decapitated, too, and on February 14, no less.

Now, if we are to believe the beautiful depths of the internet, a.k.a. the source of all fake news, there are between twelve and fourteen Saint Valentines besides these two. However, if we are to believe Vatican News a.k.a. “the news portal of the Holy See,” the Roman Martyrology lists only the two aforementioned Valentines as associated with February 14. Because both were known for miraculous healings, mass conversions, and ultimately execution by beheading on the Via Flaminia in Rome, many believe they were in fact the same person, later separated into two traditions by history and hagiography.

So far, so good. But apart from the first Valentine who secretly married off the youngsters, not a lot about this has to do with love now, does it?

Indeed, putting the “Great” back into Great Britain, it was the Brits that first linked Saint Valentine to love. Well, not all Brits, but one distinguished British gentleman named Geoffrey Chaucer. It was in 1382, to mark the engagement of the fifteen-year-old Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, that Chaucer wrote Parlement of Foules, in which he wrote: “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird (fowl) cometh to choose his mate.” It was also in London where the first Valentine’s note is said to have been written. Captured at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, Charles, Duke of Orléans was recorded to have written a note to his wife from his prison cell in the Tower of London, where he refers to her as “my very sweet Valentine.” And of course, no Valentine’s precedent is truly official without William Shakespeare, who in 1601 sealed the deal on infatuation with Valentine’s Day via Ophelia’s lament in Hamlet: “To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s Day, All in the morning betime, And I am a maid at your window, To be your Valentine.”

Okay, okay — but you promised flogging and she-wolves, I hear you say. I did indeed, because like any good Christian holiday, Saint Valentine’s Day as a celebration of love can also be traced back to a pagan festival. Long before V Day, the Romans marked mid-February with Lupercalia, a raucous celebration of fertility, spring, and the unruly forces of desire. Rooted in the myth of Romulus and Remus — the twins suckled by a she-wolf in the cave of the Lupercal — the festival involved ritual sacrifice, wine, laughter, and young men running half-naked through the city wielding strips of goatskin, striking anyone willing to be struck in the name of luck, love, and fertility. It was noisy, physical, communal, and entirely unapologetic or in other words, the complete opposite of today’s script-like choreography of chocolates, roses, and dinner reservations. So what does all this information mean for our modern Saint Valentine’s Day?

Well, regardless of whether you’re anti-valentines or pro-carnation lobbyists, why not try something new this year? Whether you’re a Camino pilgrimage type or simply ready to try any and all paths to find true love, you could go and visit one of the sixteen, yes, sixteen associated reliquaries that purport to house parts of Saint Valentine of Terni’s remains, the closest of which are housed in one of the side altars in the main Church of the Birmingham Oratory (also J.R.R. Tolkien’s place of worship for many years). Or, if you’re in Scotland, you could head to the Blessed John Duns Scotus Church in Glasgow to request a peek at Valentine’s forearm (yes, really). If you find chasing parts of a poor decapitated human too macabre, I don’t blame you. Alternatively, I would suggest you pay a visit to Westminster Abbey to (please, indulge me with this pun) hit two birds with one stone, as both Chaucer and Shakespeare’s graves can be found in the south transept. Or you could just go to the pub.

Better yet, why not take yourself out for a solo dinner to watch the adult version of Valentine’s humiliation rituals in the form of supermarket flowers and last-minute app dates from afar. I’ll even be your rendezvous — we can expense it and call it research. (After all, this holiday is a yearly occurrence, and what on Earth will we write about next year?) Unless you happen to be, or are dating, a beekeeper with epilepsy, in which case I might humbly suggest praying to Saint Valentine of Terni, because coincidences do not exist, and so you might as well try your luck (and please go do it in Birmingham for good measure).

Now, regardless of which of our carefully researched options you decide to keep company with, if you’re reading this, you’re warmly invited to our first-ever Valentine’s Boogie, generously hosted by Ron’s Coffee House in Peckham. Come and spin this editor of yours on the dancefloor, because playing Cupid is no easy business, and for reasons unknown I’ve signed up to do it for good. You’re very welcome. Literally.

This article originally appeared in Issue 02, published in February 2026. It was published online on April 11, 2026.