VALENTINE, or Valentinus, the name of a considerable number of saints, three of whom may be particularized. 1. Valentinus, presbyter and martyr, according to the authorized Roman legend (see lesson for second nocturn, 14th February, in the diocese of Tortosa), was arrested and thrown into chains at the instance of the emperor Claudius (Gothicus), and handed over to Calphurnius, who employed one Asterius to try to win him back to idolatry. Valentine miraculously healed the blind daughter of Asterius, who accordingly believed and was baptized, with all his house. The saint after long imprisonment was beaten with clubs and finally beheaded on the Flaminian Way (14th February). 2. Valentinus of Interamna (Terni), bishop and martyr, miraculously healed Chaeremon, the deformed son of Craton, a Greek rhetorician living in Rome, who along with various other prominent persons was accordingly converted. This Valentine, who also is commemorated on 14th February, is invoked, especially in Italy and Germany (St Velten), in cases of epilepsy and cognate disorders. 3. Valentinus, who is spoken of as the apostle of Rhaetia, and venerated in Passau as its first bishop, flourished during the first half of the fifth century....
For the peculiar observances that used to be connected with St Valentine’s Eve and Day in England, Scotland, and also (it is said) in some parts of France, and to which allusion is so frequently made by English writers from Shakespeare onwards, such works as Brand’s Popular Antiquities, Hone’s Every-Day Book, or Chambers’s Book of Days may be consulted. Their appropriateness to the spring season is, in a general way, perhaps, obvious enough; and, as for the name, it has been suggested that there is at least a similarity in sound between Valentine and galentin (Fr. dim. from galant).
