Cursing Chaucer’s name

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Modern, commodified celebrations of Valentine’s Day are equally loathed and adored by couples, bachelors and bachelorettes alike. Anyone who finds themselves resisting the desire to decapitate the giant teddy bears in Walmart every February should blame one man above all others: 14th-century poet Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the Valentine’s Day poem Parlement of Foules.

There were obviously no cheap candy hearts or drugstore roses in Medieval Europe, but some may be surprised to learn that Valentine’s Day, at least as it’s celebrated now, didn’t start to take hold until Chaucer’s time. Celebrations of the Saint(s) Valentine — and there are more than 30 saints who bear some variation of that name — stretch back to the fourth century, but were entirely devoid of romance.

A painting by an unknown artist depicting Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem, Parlement of Foules, which means “Parliament of Birds.” Courtesy image.

Eighth-century monk and author The Venerable Bede recorded the legend of the death of Bishop Valentinus of Terni, one of the most famous “Valentines.” He claims that the bishop performed healing miracles and converted fellow Romans to Christianity until he was tortured and beheaded — a common motif in accounts of martyrdoms, according to the University of Oxford — under the order of Furiosus Placidus (alternatively translated as “a furious Placidus”), the prefect of Terni.

Later hagiographies, all of which were written hundreds of years after these supposed events, elaborate on the story, straying further from whatever historical truth may have existed. The story was additionally conflated with the martyrdom of Valentine the Presbyter of Rome, who met the same fate just 60 miles from Valentinus within days of each other. Romantics and zealots in the 1700s and 1800s continued to embellish these stories, later adding that Valentine the Presbyter was executed for performing illegal marriages; however, these additions are so fanciful that in 1969 the Roman Catholic Church had to remove Saint Valentine’s feast day from its calendar.

More contemporary scholarship, inspired largely by these anachronistic details, has argued that modern celebrations of Valentine’s Day were an attempt to Christianize the Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia. Though holidays such as Christmas and Easter do originate in Pagan traditions, there seems to be no historical connection between the two celebrations until the 15th century — around 1,000 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and shortly after the Muslim caliphates reintroduced older Greek and Latin writings to Europe. According to Professor Jack Oruch, author of “St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February,” published in the July 1981 edition of the University of Chicago’s medieval studies journal Speculum, celebration of the Lupercalia had largely vanished by the fifth century under a predominantly Christian Rome.

It’s likely that Chaucer simply associated Valentine, whose feast day fell on Feb. 14, with fertility and therefore lovers because the date coincided with farming practices in preparation for the onset of warm weather. His poem Parlement of Foules depicts a grand meeting of birds, presided over by the personification of Nature: “Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make [When every fowl comes here to choose his mate].”

Chaucer used the allegory of the birds, as was popular at the time, to represent the importance of free will in the choice of a romantic partner. Historical records and experience testify that many common species of English birds do mate in February, and that calendars at the time calculated the beginning of spring anywhere from Feb. 7 to March 21, so Oruch and modern scholars argue Chaucer’s choice to associate this romantic time with Saint Valentine was largely coincidental.

Other poems written around the same time by Chaucer’s friends John Gower, Sir John Clanvowe and Oton de Grandson utilize the same association between lovers and Valentine’s Day; however, given that Parlement of Foules dedicated the most lines toward explaining that association, it’s likely that Chaucer’s piece came first and the rest followed suit.

Chaucer was, and remains, highly influential. Shortly after his death in 1400, the French Dukes Louis de Bourbon and Philippe de Bourgogne formed La Cour Amoureuse [The Court of Love] on Valentine’s Day under the patronage of King Charles VI of France — once again piggybacking on Chaucer’s ideas about the holiday. The court celebrated women, love and sensuality by writing and performing poetry, songs and speeches on the subjects.

As time went on, more and more poets drew inspiration from this new facet of the holiday, but it wasn’t until monk John Lydgate’s 15th-century poem “Valentine to Her that Excelleth All” that the genre of poetry became known as “valentine.” He further revolutionized the holiday in his work “Kalendare,” which was the first time loved ones — in this case God and the saints — were referred to as “valentines.”

Thereafter, “valentine” came to mean “sweetheart,” and writing Valentine’s Day poems or songs briefly fell out of fashion until a resurgence in the 17th century, according to Oruch. It was a brief respite before modern pink-and-red hearts flooded the world. 

Next time you find yourself alone for Valentine’s Day, or last-minute shopping for wilting flowers, remember to direct your ire toward the medieval and renaissance poets who doomed us all. Don’t forget to curse the name of Geoffry Chaucer, who used his power as the “Father of English Literature” for candy-coated evil.