14/02/2026
Do you know about the first Valentine's note ever? The Valentine's Day rabbit hole is overwhelmingly murky prior to the Middle Ages. However, one surety exists: neither its original incarnation as a day for the saint nor the unrelated-but-tantalizingly-dated Roman festival of Lupercalia every February 15th had any relation to love, romance, or those little heart candies with sayings like "BE MINE" on them, which have the taste and texture of chalkboard dust.
Actually, it wasn't until Chaucer that Valentine and romance found its first real connection in approx. 1365. It was also in the Middle Ages that the heart took on its current form as that symbol of emotional connection and of amor.
But as for the first little Valentine's love note? Charles I, Duke of Orléans, was imprisoned in the Tower of London following the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 (we won't even begin to touch on the Houses and families involved...). It was there that he wrote that first Valentine's poem to his wife, whom he would never see again as she died long before he was finally released after 25 years. His captivity began when he was not yet 20 years old, which certainly adds to the heartache of the story, don't you think?
Here it is in English, with all the feels:
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine,
Since for me you were born too late,
And I for you was born too soon.
God forgives him who has estranged
Me from you for the whole year.
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine.
Well might I have suspected
That such a destiny,
Thus would have happened this day,
How much that Love would have commanded.
I am already sick of love,
My very gentle Valentine.
😭 😭 😭
