Saint Valentine
(Latin-Valentinus)
The name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome
The name "Valentine", derived from valens
(worthy, strong, powerful)
Of Saint Valentine nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14.
It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name.
For this reason this liturgical commemoration was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969.
But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome" remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics.
English eighteenth-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine's identity, suggested that Valentine's Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of
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Many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.
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