The popularity of his feast owes more to the mating habits of birds than to the facts of his martyrdom.

There are in fact two Valentines, whose feasts are both celebrated on 14 February in the Roman martyrology, and neither of whom has any obvious connection with courting couples. One was a Roman priest and doctor who is believed to have been martyred under Claudius 11 on the Flaminian Way where a basilica was erected in his honour in 350. The other was a bishop of Turni (about 60 miles distant from Rome) who was brought to Rome and tortured and executed there in c.273 at the command of Placidus, the ruling prefect. Some believe that the two Valentines are in fact one person, that the Roman priest became bishop of Turni, was condemned there and brought to Rome for execution of his sentence. Since the Ads of both are equally unreliable, the final verdict may never be more than conjecture.

Development of the feast

The present popularity of Valentine's day has little to do with the historical saint or saints. It was a commonly held belief, attested from the time of Chaucer, that birds began to choose their mates on Valentine's feast-day, the very beginning of Spring, and
this is thought by many to be the origin of the tradition of choosing one's object of love as a 'Valentine'. Some scholars believe that Chaucer was actually referring to the feast-day of the bishop Valentine of Genoa, celebrated on 2 May, and that he may have had in mind the betrothal of Richard n to Anne of Bohemia on 3 May 1381. If this is the case, the conflation of the various Valentines on to a single feast-day probably occurred some time after the death of Chaucer.

It is argued too that there may also be surviving elements of the pagan Lupercalia festival from Roman times which was celebrated mid-February. The subsequent commercialism of his feast and its removal both from historical fact and the observance of piety has been distrusted by the Catholic church, and his cult has recently been reduced

Cult

No British churches are thought to have been dedicated to him, but he is often represented in art with a crippled or epileptic child at his feet whom he is believed to have cured. For this reason too he is often invoked against epilepsy. Other depictions show his beheading, or his refusal to worship idols, which led to his martyrdom.

Feast Day- 14 February
Patron saint of beekeepers, affianced couples, travellers, and the young, invoked against epilepsy, fainting and plague and for a happy marriage.