The custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons arose from the ancient Roman origin. Although the love-lottery for maidens had been banned by the Church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of Saint Valentine was still used by Roman men to seek affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones admired handwritten messages of affection.
The first of Valentine's Card grew out of this practice. It was sent in 1415 by Charles, the Duke of Orleans, to his wife when he was imprisoned as a political and war prisioner in the Tower of London at the time. He wrote her love poems.
In 1477, it was Margery Brews who wrote the oldest known valentine letter addressed to John Paston. In the next few hundred year some of England's finest writers wrote valentine poems.
Samuel Papys wrote in his famous Diary on Valentine's Day in 1667 a kind valentine received by his wife. It was a sheet of blue paper with her name written in gold letter by a little boy. This was to become the forerunner of later valentines.
Within a hundred years, it had become an English tradition to leave a valentine love letter at a sweetheart's door. Then, religious valentines had began to appear, usually made by nuns The valentines were cut in lacy patterns and decorated with painted flowers.
Most of the valentines were sentimental and romantic, while others were comical or even insulting to spinsters and misers.
Valentines of the Victorian era were lacy and made in delicate paper lace and pasted with hand-painted motifs of cupids, flowers, hearts, birds and arrows, while some valentines were enhanced with material like silk, satin, chiffon, or lace.
Before leaving England for the New World, John Winthrop wrote on Valentine's Day in 1629 a letter to his wife.It began with, "My sweet wife" and the letter ended: "Thou must be my valentine for none hath challenged me."
It was more than a century later that American valentines made its first appearence partly due to the difficult conditions of the people in the early years of settlement in the north American continent.
In 1848, Ester Howland, a young women in Worcester, Massachussetts, started a business venture that contributed a great extent to keep the tradition of Valentine alive. Her father was a stationer, and Ester started to make valentines by cutting some lacy envelopes and pasting bits of lace and little coloured pictures onto sheets of paper. Thus commercialisation velantines were introduced in the nineteenth century America and to this date, Valentine's Day has been very commercialised. In the town of Loveland, Colorado, does large volume of post office business around mid-February. The spirit of love and romance as valentines are sent out with sentimental verses and children exchanging valentine cards.
