On Valentine's Day, the world celebrates love by being bombarded with red and pink hearts — heart-shaped candies, heart-shaped cards and more.
But why?
"It didn’t mean love before the 13 th and 14 th centuries," says Eric Jager, author of The Book of the Heart and medieval literature professor at UCLA. When the shape was drawn before that point, it was generally for decorative purposes, he says, citing the enamel at the French Cluny Abbey (c. 1300) as one prominent example. As the idea of romantic love began to take shape during that medieval period, so did the symbolism.
