Valentine
Saint Valentine is the patron of lovers, engaged couples, and happy marriages because of the tradition that, when the emperor forbade soldiers to marry, this Roman priest defied the ban and secretly wed Christian couples — so the priest who joined lovers in marriage at the cost of his life became the saint of love and betrothal. His feast on February 14 was bound to romance from Chaucer’s age, when it was held that birds chose their mates on that day. He is invoked against epilepsy and the “falling sickness” — in German lands long called Valentin’s disease (Veitstanz being confused, and the name Valentin punning on the verb “fallen”) — and so the falling sickness was placed under his care. Beekeepers claim him for the sweetness of honey, fittingly bound to the patron of sweet love; and by tradition he healed the blindness of his jailer’s daughter, a final miracle of light before his martyrdom around 269.
Saint Valentine was a priest and physician in Rome who was martyred around 269 AD under Emperor Claudius II. According to tradition, he secretly married Christian couples when marriage was forbidden to soldiers, and healed the blind daughter of his jailer. His feast day became associated with romantic love in the Middle Ages.
