The Love Letter
Early 19thC British School
Watercolour heightened with bodycolour, on board
Image Size: 45 x 33.5 cm (17 x 13 in)
Framed Size: 67 x 57 cm (26 x 22 in)
Currently available and priced at £1,750

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A Brief History of Valentine's Day

Identity

The precise identity of St. Valentine is unclear. According to the Catholic Encyclopaedia, at least three Saint Valentines are mentioned in the early Roman Martyrology for the date of 14th February:

• St. Valentine (Valentinus) of Rome was a priest who suffered martyrdom in c.270 AD on the orders of Emperor Claudius II and, it is believed, was buried on the Via Flaminia in Rome. His relics are to be found in the Church of St. Praxed in Rome and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.

Coin of Emperor Claudius II (268-270 AD), known as Gothicus,
who had Valentine of Rome put to death

• St. Valentine of Terni became the first Bishop of Interamna (modern day Terni, in Umbria, north of Rome) and was martyred in c.197 AD on the orders of the Roman prefect Placidus Furius during the religious persecutions of the time. He also is said to have been buried on the Via Flaminia but in a different location to Valentine of Rome. His relics are to be found in the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni.

Some scholars have speculated that the St. Valentines of Rome and Terni were the same individual.

• And the third St. Valentine was martyred in Africa in the 3rdC AD but nothing further is known of him.

Of the three, St. Valentine of Rome is generally the most widely accepted. Legend has it that while awaiting his execution he restored the sight of his jailer's blind daughter. Another that, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer's daughter, signing it, "From your Valentine". It is from these legends that the defining tradition of Valentine's Day developed.

In the 12thC, the Roman city gate known in ancient times as the Porta Flaminia (now the Porta del Popolo) was known as the Gate of St. Valentine.

Fact not Fiction

Whichever one of the three he may have been, a St. Valentine is known to have existed since, in 1836, a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to his memory were unearthed in the catacombs of Saint Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina, an ancient road leading east-north out of Rome. These are the relics to be found in the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin.

First Official St. Valentine's Day

In Ancient Rome, the festival of Juno Februata took place on 14th February and Lupercalia, a festival of purification and fertility, on 15th February.

Juno was the patron goddess of Rome and of love, women and marriage. As part of the festival held in her honour, it had been the custom for centuries that the names of teenage girls would be written on pieces of paper and placed in an urn, from which teenage boys would choose one at random. The boy and the girl whose name was drawn would then become partners (in every sense) for the rest of the year.

In 494 AD Pope Saint Gelasius I (492-496 AD) banned the pagan celebration in honour of Juno and 'Christianised'  it as the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary (its date was changed shortly thereafter to 2nd February). In 496 AD Pope Gelasius moved the date of Lupercalia to 14th February and officially named it 'St. Valentine's Day'.

Tradition

Valentine's Day embraces a time of year that is historically associated with love and fertility. In the Middle Ages (commonly dated from the 5thC-16thC), the feast day of 14th February became associated with the notion of romantic love and, in England and France, young men and women would draw names from a bowl to see who their 'Valentines' would be (just as had been the case in Ancient Rome).  They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week, whence, it is believed, derives the expression, "to wear your heart on your sleeve".

Earliest Reference

It is generally accepted that the earliest reference to Valentine's Day as a date of particular significance for love and lovers is to be found in the poem, the Parlement of Foules (Parliament of Fowls) by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400):

For this was on seynt Valentynes day
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make

(For this was on Saint Valentine's Day
When every bird goes there to choose his mate)

© 2006 University of Manchester/The Whitworth Art Gallery

Chaucer's the Parlement of Foules was published in 1382 to honour the first anniversary of
the engagement of King Richard II of England (1367-1400) to Anne of Bohemia.

14thC and 15thC English and French literature subsequently contains numerous allusions to the association of 14th February with lovers, and as a proper occasion on which to write love letters and send love tokens.

Earliest Surviving Valentine Card

The earliest surviving Valentine card still in existence, dating to c.1415, was written by Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394-1465) to his wife, Isabella of Valois:

Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée...

(I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine...)

A depiction of Charles' imprisonment in the Tower of London from an illuminated manuscript
of his poems. Having been wounded and captured at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, he was taken
to England as a hostage and remained in captivity for the following 25 years. He is best remembered
as an accomplished poet and is immortalised as the Duke of Orleans in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Earliest Known Image

The earliest known image of Saint Valentine (Valentinus) appears in the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. Next to a woodcut portrait, the text states that Valentinus was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II (qv):

The Nuremberg Chronicle (also known as the Liber Chronicarum or Book of Chronicles) is
one of the most famous early illustrated, printed books, chronicling the history of
the world from the Creation to its publication in Nuremburg in 1493.

Shakespeare

At the turn of the 16thC/17thC, Shakespeare (1564-1616) referred to Valentine's Day in Hamlet ('Ophelia's Song', Act IV, Scene V), which was first performed in 1600-01:

 
© Brandeis University Library, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA

The 'First Folio' of Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies was the first published
collection of Shakespeare's plays. Printed in 1623 in folio format and containing 36 plays, it is believed
that some 1,000 copies were published with a cover price of £1, the equivalent of about £100
today (in 2006 one of only c.40 remaining complete copies was sold for £2.5m).

Valentine's Day celebrations in the UK grew in popularity in the 16thC and 17thC. Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), for example, records in his celebrated Diary the custom of drawing lots with the name of the person upon whom one would bestow a gift, and a motto such as, "Most Courteous & Most Faire".

By the middle of the 18thC it was common for lovers and friends to exchange handwritten notes and gifts. The first manufactured cards became available at the end of the 18thC and are notable for what, today, we consider their overly sentimental images and verses.

© BBC/Unknown

A typical Victorian Valentine's Day card

Best wishes

CHRIS NOEL-JOHNSON
ALBANY FINE ART

T: +44 (0) 1367 870961
M: +44 (0) 7799 691 692
E: chrisnj@albanyfineart.co.uk