Chaucer's love birds is a portrait of the English poet named Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve (1412). The earliest known link between Valentine's Day and romance is found in Chaucer's Parliament of Foules. The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer:

" For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [choose] his make [mate]."

This was a poem written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381. They married eight months later as they both were around the age of fourteen.

The earliest surviving valentine is a fifteenth-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his "valentined" wife, which commences.

" Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée… (Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1-2)"

In 1415, at the same time the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.

In 1600-01, Valentine's Day is also mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet : "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day."

In Dublin, Ireland, St. Valentine of Rome was donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church. 1960s, the church was renovated and relics restored. In American culture in the 1840s, Saint Valentine's Day was remade as a writer in 'GFTraham's American Monthly' said "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feastday of Saint Valentine February 14th was removed from the General Roman Calendar for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14."

The feast day is celebrated in Balzan and Malta where relics of the saint are said to be found, as well as throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Vatican II calendar.

The second part of the twentieth century, exchanging cards was extended to the United States, usually from a man to a woman. My question here is how do we really and truly know that same sex partners didn't also exchange? Because of it's time, perhaps it was not documented but I believe it has always been that way in history. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry. It's 2008 and I am still waiting for that gift!

The day had come to be associated with the platonic greeting of "Happy Valentine's Day." As a joke, Valentine's Day is also referred to as "Singles Awareness Day." Isn't that a cruel joke at the very least? If your single and choose to be then it is not an issue. But for those who are and do not like to be single, means more candy purchases as well as perhaps movies leading to the inevitable weight gain.

Valentine's day is also celebrated in Europe, Middle East and Africa, The Americas and Asia.

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