See also: Saint Valentin

Valentine de Terni was a Moine which lived at the time of the reign of the Emperor Claude II the Gothic. Martyr, festival the February 14th.

It was known of its time to advise the young people in love, it is known as that once the young men ensured by the words of Valentine, this one gave, as an offering, a flower of its garden to the applicant, which hastened to join its dulcinée for offering to him.

These times were the beginnings of the Christianisme and all Europe was not christianized yet, with the result that the emperor Claude II the Cruel one had wind of the consultations of Valentine. The time was religieusement in full change, Claude did not like of anything Christendom and ordered that Valentine is stopped, which was made.

Valentine who refused to subject himself to the will of the Emperor, was thus put at the jail. And it is during this time of its life that it met the girl of its geôlier, which was called Julia and been blind of birth. During his captivity, Valentine maintained the friendly relations with Julia. This one, being given its blindness, had required of Valentine the description of the world. Julia, by love towards Valentine, brought to him what to eat until the day when, it is says, a miracle occurred during one evening.

Certain witnesses would have said to have seen sharp and strong light by the window of its cell, Julia had just found finally the sight! Its words were: Now I see! I see the world such as you described it to me!

This great event arrived to the ears of Claude II the Cruel one, which did not appreciate this kind of history, and ordered at once the execution of Valentine. The day of its execution, it was coiled blows by the Roman legionaries and was decapitated on the Voie flamina, on February 14th, 269.

And it has been for this day that all the family of Julia converts with Christianity to honor the memory with Valentine. It is known as that Julia planted, meadows of the tomb of Valentine, an almond tree and this tree was since this day, a symbol of the love.

Saint Valentin became very popular in Germany for a reason well amusing. The German pilgrims, newcomer in Rome by the Flamina way, had taken the practice to make a halt in the St. Valentine's day church. Sound resemblance of the noun of Valentine and the German verb " fahlen" (to fall) had been worth with the saint the reputation to cure the wounds of those which had made a bad fall.

See too

Internal bonds

• late Antiquity