Valentine’s Day was not always centred on love and romance. In fact, the day associated with the martyred St. Valentine initially stressed piety and a relationship with oneself and God, rather than romantic love. Geoffrey Chaucer’s poem ‘Parliament of Fowls’ is widely accepted to be one of the first literary linkages of Valentine’s Day not only with 14th February, but also with romantic love. According to associate professor of English and Comparative Literature Theodore Leinbaugh, ‘It is generally accepted that the date of February 14 first became associated with romantic love and various celebrations of love within the literary circle of Geoffrey Chaucer’.1
Written around 1382, ‘The Parliament of Fowls’ depicts a dream-vision sequence upon the narrator’s falling asleep whilst reading Cicero’s Dream of Scipio. The garden the narrator enters in this dream could be viewed as a symbolic realm of love and courtship, its focus on the joys of love amplified by the fact that it exists in the realm of dreams with unlimited possibility and hope. In this garden, on Valentine’s Day, birds gather to choose their mates for the upcoming year. A noble female eagle, is courted by three male eagles, who both use flattering and intelligent rhetoric reminiscent of human modes of courtship within the medieval period.
Interestingly, Chaucer also seems to promote free will and the concept of choice when it comes to love. The female eagle refuses to make an immediate decision following the three eagles’ declarations of love and devotion. This not only merges Valentine’s Day will love in general, but also highlights aspects of boundaries and personal choice in relation to relationships.
Valentine’s Day is treated not as a religious feast but as a social occasion dedicated to love and partnership. Chaucer writes, ““For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh there to chese his make.” This couplet is often cited as the earliest clear literary connection between Valentine’s Day and romantic pairing, and presents Valentine’s Day as a communal, ritualised event rooted in partnership rather than religion.
This literary tradition arguably aided in cementing Valentine’s Day as a day all about love in various forms. By the fifteenth century, the writing of Valentine poems and the practice of choosing a “Valentine” were well established among the European elite. This continued to be popularised, with Valentine’s Day cards being in circulation by the 1700s. Chaucer’s poem stands at the beginning of this shift, offering a vision of love that is communal, ritualized, and joyful.
Following Chaucer’s ‘Parliament of Fowls’, Valentine’s Day has steadily grown in secular popularity and its associations with love have eclipsed its original purpose as a feast to commemorate St. Valentine. The oldest known ‘valentine’ message was a rondeau, a form of medieval French poetry, that was written in 1415, after Chaucer’s ‘Parliament of Fowls’ was comprised. This further demonstrates the widening popularity of Valentine’s Day for addressing and acknowledging lovers.
‘The Parliament of Fowls’ not only creates a Medieval allegory for courtly romantic practices but also establishes a reimagination of a commemorative saintly feast as a more secular appreciation for romance, love and partnership. This alignment of Saint Valentine with the 14th February and romance provided a foundational framework that continues to shape how Valentine’s Day is depicted and celebrated.
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