Valentine’s Day falls on 14 February and is marked in Britain much as elsewhere — cards, flowers, chocolates and a restaurant meal — with one distinctly British wrinkle: the card is traditionally not signed.
The anonymous card
The British convention is that a valentine is sent without a name, leaving the recipient to work out who sent it. Cards are sold specifically for this, and a good many have no space for a signature at all — some carry only a question mark inside.
The custom is genuinely old and was firmly established by the Victorian period, when cheap postage made mass card-sending possible. It survives most strongly among teenagers, for whom the whole appeal is the deniability.
This is one clear difference from America, where cards are signed and where schoolchildren exchange them openly in class. British schools generally do not, and a British child receiving an unsigned card is expected to conduct an investigation.
Which Valentine
Unclear, and there are at least two — possibly three — early Christian martyrs of the name, both associated with 14 February and neither with romance in any contemporary source.
The romantic association appears to begin with Chaucer, whose Parliament of Fowls of around 1382 links the day to birds choosing their mates:
For this was on Seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make.
Whether Chaucer was recording an existing tradition or inventing one is debated, and the honest answer is that the modern holiday is more literary than religious in origin.
The oldest English valentine
Written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orléans, to his wife, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London after being captured at Agincourt. It survives in the British Library, and is generally described as the earliest surviving valentine in English.
The commerce
Around 25 million cards are sent in the UK each year, and the day is:
- The busiest of the year for florists, with red roses at several times their usual price.
- Among the busiest for restaurants, most of which run a fixed-price menu that regulars quietly avoid.
- A significant date for engagements — a large share of British proposals happen on it.
There is also a well-established British counter-tradition of finding the whole thing faintly excruciating, and a corresponding market in ironic cards.
The older customs
Several English regional traditions preceded the card industry:
- Valentine’s buns in Norfolk, left anonymously on doorsteps by “Jack Valentine”, who knocks and runs.
- Divination customs — the first unmarried man a woman saw on the morning of the 14th would be her husband, and various rituals involving bay leaves under the pillow were used to dream of a future spouse. See superstitions.