Various Valentines

[pallas_athena]

The BBC site is claiming that the first known valentine in English has been found among the Paston letters. Sent by 17-year-old Margery Brews to her future husband John Paston, it's been dated to 1477. Text here; John evidently sent an answer, getting a further reply from Margery.

From the BBC site:

It is a letter, written from a young woman to her love, and is the first mention of the word Valentine in the English language. [...]

"It might not necessarily be that nobody had used Valentine in any context before, but this is probably one of the first times it was written down," says British Library curator Julian Harrison.

That last is, of course, WRONG. Come on, guys, I'm only a lousy BA in English and even I know that Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, in which a number of talking birds hold a huge celebration of St Valentine's Day, predates this letter by almost a century. (Current best guess: about 1382-ish.) There are fifteen manuscript sources for the poem.

Chaucer's poem, admittedly, does not use the word "valentine" as a noun denoting either a letter or a person (or bird), but it invokes the saint, and the day as a festival of love, several times. Here's the final song, as all the birds leave with their newfound mates:

Qui bien aime a tard oublie.

Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake,
And driven away the longe nightes blake!

Saynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte; --
Thus singen smale foules for thy sake --
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake.

Wel han they cause for to gladen ofte,
Sith ech of hem recovered hath his make;
Ful blisful may they singen whan they wake:
Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe,
That hast this wintres weders over-shake,
And driven away the longe nightes blake.

Comments

[library-keeper.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, Julian's blog post is entitled 'The Oldest Valentine?' (note the question-mark) and he's talking about Valentine letters, as in 'be my Valentine', of which this is indeed (AFAIK) the oldest known example. Trust the BBC journalist to miss the point.

But you're right, Bird Singing Day goes back a lot further than the first Valentine.

[larissa-00.livejournal.com]

I went looking in 'The Owl and the Nightingale', to see whether that had an earlier mention of St Valentine, but no, just of love in spring.