Was St. Valentine of Rome someone who would give jewelry, candy, flowers, and a card for romantic purposes?

We don’t have the answer, but the St. Valentine we think of, Valentinus, the patron saint of love who crossed over into secular popularity, was possibly a priest or a bishop. He lived so long ago, in the third century, that clergy might have been married and had families.

His name became the hallmark of romance and courtship. He was the patron saint of love and happy marriage, as well as of bee keepers, epilepsy, and other groups and circumstances. Faith and fidelity was his style. The history is muddled and there are different Valentine stories, so what’s attributed to him in a saintly way might have been the actions of a couple of people.

They all now fall into the category of Valentine trivia.

Signing a card “your Valentine,” according to legend, came from a tale that as Valentine prepared for his execution, he sent a good-bye note to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had cured of blindness through prayer.

The date he was beheaded? Feb. 14, 278, according to one story.

In Rome, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin has a relic that is supposedly Valentine’s skull. Because it was found in a catacomb in the early 1800s, it’s not known if that’s actually the Valentine who died more than 1,500 years earlier.

A variation on the signature tale is that the girl was a judge’s daughter and Valentine was under house arrest, and in gratitude for her healing, the judge destroyed his idols, converted to Christianity along with the entire household, and freed the Christian prisoners he had jailed.

Why did Valentine have a death sentence? One story is that he wouldn’t offer sacrifice to pagan gods.

Another is that he tried to convert the emperor to Christianity.

A third possibility is that he was solemnizing Christian marriages at a time when young men were forbidden to marry. Being single was thought to make them better soldiers. But I doubt that the emperor would accept a Christian marriage as a draft dodge, and some say that was a tale invented by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.

There are up to a dozen saints named Valentine, including a pope whose reign was only 30 to 40 days in the year 827, and a female St. Valentine, or Valentina.

There’s no longer a specific saint’s feast day for the Valentine of love. In the Roman Catholic Church, the feast day began in 496, and Valentine’s day was done in 1969. Now he’s grouped with Roman martyrs but still given the Feb. 14 observance day.

Even the day, Feb. 14, has different reasoning. If being the execution date of a Valentine isn’t enough, look to the Middle Ages belief that Feb. 14 was the day when birds would partner up for the year. That must make them sing, be a harbinger for spring, and bring thoughts of romance and love to humans.

However, like many other Christian holidays, Feb. 14 might be the result of appropriating a pagan holiday. Lupercalia, tied to the story of Remus and Romulus founding Rome after being raised by a wolf, was celebrated Feb. 15 as a fertility festival.

Pope Gelasius I, who established Feb. 14 as the feast day for St. Valentine, also did what he could to change a Lupercalia tradition in which men would draw women’s names from an urn, and be committed to the woman for the next year. The pope kept the name drawing, but for his variation, men and women drew saints’ names whom they would try to emulate over the year. But men would still try to attract women by passing notes for Valentine’s day.

In 2016, if you want to have loving favor on Valentine’s Day, you might do better following today’s cultural standards rather than trying to act like the saint. Take those cues of the birds and his association with the bees. Don’t mess with the pagans’ festivities. It will be fine if you keep the tradition of signing “your Valentine,” but look forward to the next day, to the life that love brings.

Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.

First Published February 13, 2016, 5:00 a.m.