Lovers and the greeting card industry may have Geoffrey Chaucer to thank for
the holiday that warms the coldest month. Although reference books abound
with mentions of Roman festivals from which Valentine's Day may derive, Jack
B. Oruch has shown that no evidence supports these connections and that
Chaucer was probably the first to link the saint's day with the custom of
choosing sweethearts. No such link has been found before the writings of
Chaucer and several literary contemporaries who also mention it, but after
them the association becomes widespread. It seems likely that Chaucer, the
most imaginative of the group, invented it. The fullest and perhaps earliest
description of the Valentine's Day tradition occurs in Chaucer's Parlement of
Foules, composed around 1380, which takes place “on Seynt Valentynes
day,/Whan every foul cometh there to chese [choose] his make [mate].”