The celebration of Valentine\u2019s Day is often seen as a modern institution, even if the roots of the holiday go back to Late Antiquity and the figures of St. Valentine of Rome and St. Valentine of Terni. It\u2019s difficult to separate our view of February 14th from the more recent phenomenon of greeting cards, comical cupids, and specialty treats from candy companies.<\/p>\n
However, not only are some of these traditions older than we might think (mass-produced Valentine\u2019s Day cards were an enormous success in early 19th-century England), but the earliest Valentine\u2019s Day love poem comes from none other than the first great English author, Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote in the second half of the 14th-century.<\/p>\n
Chaucer\u2019s most famous work is The Canterbury Tales<\/i>, an enormous collection of linked stories in poetry and prose. But his 700-line poem \u201cParlement of Foules\u201d has the special distinction of being the first surviving record of a connection between Valentine\u2019s Day and romantic love. Chaucer probably composed the poem in 1381\u201382. At the time, he was a member of the court of King Richard II, holding an important bureaucratic position in London. The date suggests that Chaucer wrote \u201cParelment of Foules\u201d to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of the English king to Princess Anne of Bohemia.<\/p>\n
The poem follows the dream of the narrator, where he walks through Venus\u2019s temple and discovers a meeting of birds where they all choose their mates. This is where the mention of St. Valentine\u2019s Day appears (English modernized):<\/p>\n
For this was on St. Valentine\u2019s Day,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
When every bird cometh there to choose his mate.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
The poem also contains a familiar Valentine\u2019s image, Cupid with his arrows:<\/p>\n
Under a tree, beside a well, I saw<\/i><\/p>\n
Cupid our lord his arrows forge and file;\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n
And at his feet his bow already lay.<\/i><\/p>\n
When Chaucer mentions St. Valentine\u2019s Day, is he referring specifically to February 14th? Late winter isn\u2019t a time when birds in England would mate. However, the date for the start of spring\u2014when some birds would have started nesting in England\u2014was on February 23rd in the calendars of the time, certainly close enough for Chaucer to take poetic license and nudge it a bit to match with Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
Love birds remain a popular symbol of Valentine\u2019s Day even now, and for this we can thank Chaucer. In fact, he may very well have invented<\/i> the link between love and Valentine\u2019s Day, although we will probably never know for certain.<\/p>\n
Whoever started these traditions, all of us here at AC Designs Inc.\u00a0hope you have a wonderful February 14th<\/sup>!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The celebration of Valentine\u2019s Day is often seen as a modern institution, even if the roots of the holiday go back to Late Antiquity and the figures of St. Valentine of Rome and St. Valentine of Terni. It\u2019s difficult to separate our view of February 14th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happy-holidays","tag-happy-holidays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acdesignsinc.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}