History tells us that it was Chaucer who first linked St. Valentine's Day with romance. In 1381, Chaucer wrote a poem to mark the engagement of England's Richard ll to Anne of Bohemia. Chaucer linked the poem to St. Valentine's Day.
The oldest valentine still in existence today was a written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was a prisoner in England's Tower of London after he was captured at the Battle of Agincourt. (The greeting is now part in a collection at the British