The history of Valentine's Day is surrounded by legend, only some of which may be factual. One such legend is that it came from the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, a February 15 fertility celebration held every year for 800 years before Valentine's Day was established ("History of Valentine's Day;" "Valentine's Day"). The celebration included a lottery in which young men would draw teenage girls' names from a box, and the girl whose name he drew would be the man's sexual companion throughout the remainder of the year ("Valentine's Day").
When Christianity arose in Europe, the pagan nature of the holiday was a problem. Pope Gelasius changed the lottery so that instead of drawing the names of young girls, the names would be of saints and both men and women could draw a name from the box and strive to emulate that saint for the remainder of the year ("Valentine's Day"). It was also typical for pagan holidays such as Lupercalia to be renamed for early Christian martyrs, one of which was the 3rd century Roman martyr Saint Valentine ("History of Valentine's Day"). Interestingly, there were actually three different saints named "Valentine," and all of them were martyred on February 14 ("History of Valentine's Day").
One legend has it that Valentine was a 3rd century Roman priest who defied the Emperor Claudius II, who had outlawed marriage for young men in an attempt to gain better soldiers for his army ("The History of Valentine's Day"). Valentine felt the decree was unjust and continued to perform marriages in secret until his actions were discovered and Claudius had him put to death ("The History of Valentine's Day").
Another legend suggests that Valentine was martyred for helping Christians escape beatings and torture on the part of Roman prison guards ("The History of Valentine's Day"). Still another legend states that Valentine was the originator of the very first Valentine greeting; ...