Lupercalia was the ancient Roman festival celebrated in mid-February that is sometimes linked to the origins of Valentine’s Day. It was observed in Rome from February 13 to 15 and is generally associated with purification, health, and fertility rites.
The festival was connected with the Luperci, priests who performed rituals near the Lupercal cave, traditionally identified as the place where the she-wolf nursed Romulus and Remus. Accounts describe the use of strips of sacrificed animal hide in a ritual associated with purification and protection.
The popular story that Lupercalia involved drawing women’s names from a jar to form romantic pairings is not supported by ancient evidence. That idea appears in much later retellings and is often confused with medieval Valentine customs.
Modern historians also caution that a direct line from Lupercalia to Valentine’s Day has not been demonstrated. Saint Valentine’s feast was Christian, and the association between Valentine’s Day and romantic love is first recorded much later, notably in Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century poetry.