Valentine’s day, also known as Saint Valentine’s Day, is celebrated by couples exchanging chocolates and love. But what they may not know is the history behind this day. St. Valentine’s Day began as a celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus, and several martyrdom stories were invented for the various Valentines.

According to “The Legend of Saint Valentine,” an article published on history.com, a popular account of Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire. During his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius. It was stated that before his execution he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell.

Valentine’s day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages when the tradition of courtly love flourished. As Tatiana Fedorova pointed out in an article published on an Orthodox Christian website, “The celebration of the memory of St. Valentine was established exclusively as veneration for his martyrdom, without any connection to the patronage of lovers.”

In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards known as “Valentines.” Valentine’s Day symbols that are used today include the heart, doves, and figures of the winged cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-production greeting cards.

Mr.Spotts, Brebeuf history teacher, offered this humorous take on Saint Valentine’s Day:  he shared a card that said “Roses are red, Violets are blue. I was beaten with clubs, beheaded, buried under the cover of darkness, disinterred by my followers, and you commemorate my martyrdom by sending each other chocolates.”

All in all, that just sums up the story behind Valentine’s Day. So when you profess your love to your sweetheart on Valentine’s day, keep the real Saint Valentine in your thoughts.