Last month I had an interesting experience as a guest on the John Acres radio show on BBC Radio Devon. From Monday to Friday, I was involved in a quiz which focused on celebrity birthdays, in which I pitted my wits against the host in attempting to guess the age of various celebrities. Unfortunately, my wits were not good enough and by the end of the week I was completely annihilated in the contest! But it was fun trying out something a little different.

Throughout the week I was asked various questions about history – as might be expected to be asked of a history teacher – and on a few occasions I was simply stumped for an answer. Here was a self-anointed Tudor expert not knowing whether or not Henry VIII initiated the tradition of Valentine’s Day. And so, I decided to have a little look further into Henry VIII’s connection with this holiday.

Of course, Henry VIII is deemed by many to be a man of love, as evidenced by his six wives (and perhaps many more mistresses), as well as through his love poetry to Anne Boleyn (and her ‘pretty duckies’). But my initial gut instinct on whether or not he have rise to the Valentine’s Day holiday was that he perhaps did not, particularly because he was involved of a range of sweeping religious reforms which ended a significant number of holidays in the 1530s.

Many blogposts and websites highlight how Henry VIII declared Valentine’s Day a holiday in 1537. Such a date is bang in the middle of Henry VIII’s religious reformation, having removed the power of the Pope through his Act of Supremacy in 1534, which then led to the dissolution of the monasteries later in the decade. Saint Valentine is a figure embraced by the the Catholic Church, which places him in opposition to all the things that England was attempting to reform during that period.

Valentine himself appears to have been active in the third century, and it is claimed that he secretly performed weddings for couples against the wishes of the Roman emperor. One historian notes how the celebrations has ‘its roots in a pagan fertility festival’, which:

‘involved lots of naked folk running through the streets spanking the backsides of young women with leather whips, supposedly to improve their fertility.’

The celebration came back into vogue in the medieval age, and it is now a big business in which billions are spent every year on cards, flowers, and other gifts. However, despite the various claims, there are many other counter-claims that dispute Henry VIII’s involvement in the holiday. What is clear is that it became more popular during the Tudor age, and by the early 1600s the holiday is mentioned in the work of William Shakespeare.

So, I shall move beyond a few internet searches and will take this research up a notch by hitting the library shelves. I’m sure a good academic biography or two will unveil the truth. At the very least, I can enhance my own understanding of the Tudor period beyond wars and economic crises to incorporate more of the curiosities of the period. And then, the next time I am asked I shall be prepared!