Valentine's Day and Courtly Love in the Middle Ages

Where did Valentine’s Day come from? How was Valentine’s Day in the Middle Ages celebrated? And what was courtly love?
Valentine’s Day in the Middle Ages wasn’t about love for a long time, but it was a day to celebrate a martyr saint or two by the name of Saint Valentine. One of Eleanor of Aquitaine’s poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, likely created the love part of Valentine’s Day with his poem Parliament of Fowls, wherein he said that birds mated on February 14. Courtly love was also idealized and laid out by Eleanor and her daughter Marie, who were both very influential on that topic. They also supposedly presided over Courts of Love, where they decided what love was and settled love disputes.
Who was Saint Valentine? What was courtly love?

Who was Saint Valentine in the Middle Ages?

Saint Valentine

Who was the mysterious Saint Valentine? His holiday inspires love and the giving of gifts such as chocolate and flowers. There may be multiple Saint Valentines, although at least two might also be the same person. The first legend is that Saint Valentine was a priest who lived in Rome when Emperor Claudius the Second reigned.

Emperor Claudius the Second on a Coin

Emperor Claudius banned marriage because he wanted unmarried warriors. Valentine, the priest, disagreed with that decree, so he continued marrying young lovers. Unfortunately, the emperor caught on and killed Valentine on February 14. Before his murder, he went to prison.

Supposedly, he healed his captor’s blind daughter and converted his captor’s whole family. On his death day, he allegedly sent a note signed “Your Valentine,” which is still a common way to sign letters to a lover, particularly on Valentine’s day.

At the same time, there was another man named Valentine, the Bishop of Terni. He also held unauthorized weddings and healed his captor’s blind daughter, ending in her household becoming Christian. He also died on the same day as the priest and was buried on the same highway.

The same emperor killed him for the same crimes as the priest. They may be the same person; we honestly don’t know. Because of the secret, unauthorized marriages, they became the patron saint of lovers. The love notes might have come from the message sent to his captor’s daughter.

Why is Valentine’s Day About Love?

Celebrating a saint who defied a cruel emperor is fine, but what does that have to do with love? Valentine’s Day in the Middle Ages didn’t start out with a day celebrating love after all.

One reason Valentine’s Day is about love is because Saint Valentine performed marriages against the Emperor’s wishes. Another reason may have been another one of the Catholic Church’s attempts to Christianize pagan holidays. The holiday may have come from the Roman tradition of the Feast of Lupercalia.

Lupercalia was a fertility festival and a day of pairing random girls and boys for the festival, which in turn resulted in a few weddings. Yet another reason for the theme is the popular medieval idea that birds chose their mates on February 14.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about the birds mating on February 14, and he decided to add love between humans to the tradition of Valentine’s Day. Whatever the actual reason, it has been a month of love and romance for a long time.

What was Courtly Love?

What was courtly love? The basic answer you should know is that it was false, adulterous love. It wasn’t real, but people idealized it anyway. At a time when noble children didn’t have a choice in whom they married (see my page on wealthy women here and my page on wealthy men here), it is unsurprising that the idea of courtly love, where they chose who to love, caught on.

Courtly Love in the High Middle Ages by World History Encyclopedia

However, this celebrated and idealized form of love in the Middle Ages had a few bumps. Number one, Marie de Champagne, the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and French King Louis (Eleanor’s first husband) ruled that love between a husband and wife was impossible. She decided that because of a few silly ideas. One idea was that spouses had to give everything to each other, but lovers gave everything without being compelled.

Medieval Lovers

Another reason was that she believed that jealousy was essential to love, and jealousy doesn’t apply to spouses. Another part of this idealized genre of writing was that people could only fall in love with people of the same or higher rank, they had to be a certain age, and they had to be able to see. The women were also supposed to be married already.

What Rules Applied to Courtly Love?

Courtly love had a lot of rules, or it was not actually considered “Courtly Love”. First, boys had to be at least eighteen but younger than sixty and able to see. Without sight, there was no new love.

The End of the Song (or Tristan and Isolde) by E. Blair Leighton

Along with thinking that jealousy showed love and love could not exist between married couples, they believed that a new love erases the old one. Also, you should only love someone you would be proud to marry (being the same or higher rank) and people could only love if they had good character (which was supposedly passed down through family lines).

They believed peasants couldn’t actually love because they didn’t have the right bloodlines, therefore no good character. The lover could not be too passionate, they could only hug their beloved and no other. A lover can turn pale when he sees his beloved while the thought of her should make him happy. He should only do what will make her happy and proud, and he should never take anything from her.

Courtly love also had to be a secret. If lovers corresponded with letters, they couldn’t sign their names or use their seals. If a lover gave his beloved a ring, she wore it on her left pinkie finger with any stone facing her palm. They could only receive particular gifts from each other, such as handkerchiefs, little snips of hair, rings, gloves, purses, sleeves, etc. The present had to look pretty, help with personal appearance, or bring their lover to mind.

In conclusion, courtly love was popular but not very virtuous, and Valentine’s Day and courtly love came from the Middle Ages from Eleanor of Aquitaine’s poets.