Charles of Orléans and the Origins of Valentine’s Day
It’s doubtful whether Charles of Orléans felt particularly love-struck amid the tumultuous events of the fifteenth century when he penned the earliest known Valentine’s Day poem. However, the influence of his novelty would contribute to a tradition that is still going strong some 600 years later.
His verse began with the lines:
“Je suis desja d’amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée…”
Understandably, Charles may have grown weary of love, given life’s challenges during the Hundred Years’ War, a period vividly chronicled by Barbara Tuchman in her enthralling work, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.
At the age of 14, Charles endured the loss of his mother, Valentina Visconti, who succumbed to illness just a year after the murder of his father. It was a tragic moment, compounded by the traditional oath of vengeance, that Charles and his siblings were made to swear at her deathbed to avenge their father’s murder.
This brings me to his father, Louis I of Orléans, who was maybe not the most sympathetic character in French history and a figure of power and controversy. As the younger brother of King Charles VI, Louis faced the daunting task of assisting his mentally ill brother in ruling the kingdom, often collaborating…
