Valentines: Regency Style

Though St. Valentine’s Day has been celebrated for a very long time, the Valentine’s Day cards we send today, and their romantic precursors with pictures, lace and ribbons didn’t really come into fashion until the mid 19th century with the Victorian era. However, that didn’t mean that lovers in Regency England (the period between1811-1820), or in times before, didn’t observe the day. They did.
Valentine’s Day was first associated with romantic love in the times of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love by presenting flowers, offering confectionery and sending notes, sometimes in poems. In the mid 17th century, Samuel Pepys recorded the celebration in his diary:

Thursday, 14th February 1661. 14th (Valentine's day). Up early and to Sir W. Batten's, but would not go in till I asked whether they that opened the door was a man or a woman, and Mingo, who was there, answered a woman, which, with his tone, made me laugh; so up I went and took Mrs. Martha for my Valentine (which I do only for complacency), and Sir W. Batten he go in the same manner to my wife, and so we were very merry.

Read the entire article in the February 2015 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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