The Feast of Saint Valentine

“So short our lives, so hard the lessons, _ so difficult the tests, so sudden the final victory, _ so tenuous the hope of joy that so easily evaporates into fear _ – this is what I mean by Love……._ For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day When every bird comes there to choose his match Of every kind that men may think of And that so huge a noise they began to make That earth and air and tree and every lake Was so full, that not easily was there space For me to stand—so full was all the place.” Chaucer 1382 Of Birds Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s – 1400) was an English poet and author, he is widely considered to be the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages; His most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Called the “father of English literature” he was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets’ Corner, in Westminster Abbey. This section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey now contains the remains or memorials to some of the greatest writers and poets in British history including Shakespeare, Dickens, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, W. H. Auden, Jane Austen, William Blake, the three Bronte sisters, Robert Burns, Benjamin Disraeli, Oscar Wilde, William Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, Eliot and many, many more. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific “A Treatise on the Astrolabe” for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament, which is why, above many of his contemporaries, we know so much about him today. What Chaucer is far less famous for, is writing what is believed to be one of the first, and perhaps the first, reference to St. Valentine’s Day as being a special day for lovers: which he did in his 699-line poem ‘The Parliament of Fowls’, in 1382. Before this time, the day was known as ‘The Feast of Saint Valentine’ having been established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated in honour of Saint Valentine of Rome, who died on the 14th of February, in AD 269. Early folk traditions connected to St. Valentine’s Day were built up around its connection to the onset of Spring. In Slovenia, Saint Valentine was one of the saints of spring, the saint of good health, and the patron of beekeepers and pilgrims and it was celebrated as the day when the first work in the vineyards and in the fields commenced after winter. It has also become a folk tale that birds proposed to each other or married on the 14th of February. Chaucer’s poem is that of a dream about a parliament for birds, coming together to choose their mates. It was said to have been written to honour the first anniversary of the engagement between fifteen-year-old King Richard II of England and fifteen-year-old Anne of Bohemia, which took place after five years of negotiating the marriage contract. Whilst Chaucer writes about the natural love and love’s true nature, even writing of the female’s right to not only choose her partner but to express her desire to wait another year, in a time when courtly marriage was usually arranged. Yet there is no record of the traditions of love being associated with St. Valentine’s Day before his poem. There are, however, several poems describing birds mating on this day that soon followed. The Tower The earliest description of February 14 as an annual celebration of love appears in the Charter of the Court of Love. The charter, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France at Mantes-la-Jolie in 1400, describes lavish festivities to be attended by several members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song, and poetry competitions, jousting, and dancing. Amid these festivities, the attending ladies would hear and rule on disputes from lovers. The history of sending Valentine’s Day letters or cards to the objects of one’s affection is vague at best, believed to have started in the UK and spread throughout Europe. The oldest known Valentine’s Day letter was written by Charles, the Duke of Orleans to his wife Bonne in 1415. The Duke was just 21 years old and the letter was written from his prison in the Tower of London, after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt who was fifteen or sixteen at the time. As was the custom at the time for most royals, marriage was a matter of state and arranged with all the maneuvers and diplomacy of an international peace treaty. This was the boy’s second marriage, having at age 12, been married off to his 17-year-old cousin Isabella of Valois, daughter of King Charles VI, herself already a widow after being first married at age six. Charles’s young marriage to Isabella ended when she died giving birth in 1409. The following year, Charles wed in yet another political alliance; to 11-year-old Bonne of Armagnac, daughter of Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac. In the letter, Charles refers to his wife as his Valentine but given the circumstances, it makes for grim reading: My very gentle Valentine, Since for me, you were born too soon, And I for you was born too late. God forgives him who has estranged Me from you for the whole year. I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine. Charles would end up being imprisoned for 25 years and never saw his valentine again, nor did they have any children; Bonne died sometime between 1430 and 1435, whilst he was still locked up in the tower. When Charles did eventually return to France he wed once again at the age of 46 to Mary of Cleves, aged 14. They had three children and he died in 1465. Charles wrote hundreds of poems whilst in prison; many of them about love and nobility. Understandably, the longer he was held captive, the … Read more