Saint Valentine of Rome was martyred on 14 February in AD 269. The Feast of Saint Valentine, also known as Saint Valentine’s Day, was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14 in honour of the Christian martyr.
The first reference to St Valentine’s Day being for lovers came in Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1382 poem Parlement of Foules, when he wrote “For this was on St Valentine’s Day when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”
The Victorians popularised the sending of Valentine’s cards – the earliest were flat paper sheets, with printed colour illustrations and embossed borders, but they were too expensive to send. The introduction, by Sir Rowland Hill (born in Kidderminster), of the flat-rate one penny postage in 1840 started the mass production of Valentine’s cards. The following year 400,000 were sent and postmen were given special refreshment breaks to cope with the dangerous extra loads.
Franke Dicksee ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ (1884)
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