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It appears that no record exists of romantic
celebrations on Valentine’s Day prior to a poem,
‘Parliament of Foules’ Chaucer wrote around 1375.
The poem refers to February 14th as “the day birds
(and humans) come together to find a mate”.
Here in the UK, Valentine’s Day began to be
celebrated by the many, around the 17th century.
By the 1750’s, friends and lovers of all social classes
had begun exchanging handwritten notes or small
tokens of affection, and by 1900 with advancements
in printing technology, printed cards had begun to
replace written letters. Mass produced, ‘ready-made’
cards were an easy way for people to express their
feelings in a time when openly expressing one’s
feelings was discouraged. Cheaper postage rates
also contributed to an increase in the popularity of
sending Valentine’s Day greetings to a loved one.
By the 1840s, the notion of Valentine’s Day as a day
to celebrate love had taken over most of the English-
speaking world. This was Cupid’s golden age: The
prudish Victorians adored the idea of showering each
other with elaborate cards and gifts on Valentine’s
Day. It was this ‘golden age of love’ that launched
Richard Cadbury, heir of a certain British chocolate
manufacturing family and responsible for sales at this
crucial point in his company’s history.
Cadbury had recently improved its chocolate making
technique, allowing them to extract pure cocoa
butter from whole beans, producing a more palatable
drinking chocolate. This new process resulted in an
excess amount of cocoa butter, which Cadbury used
to produce many more varieties of what was then
called “eating chocolate”.
Richard recognized a great marketing opportunity
for the new “eating chocolates” and started selling
them in beautifully decorated boxes that he himself
designed.
From that point, it wasn’t long before images of
Cupids and roses started to adorn heart-shaped
boxes. Although Richard Cadbury didn’t actually
patent the heart-shaped box, it’s generally accepted
that he was the first to produce one. The boxes were
marketed by Cadbury as having a dual purpose:
after eating the chocolates, the box itself was so
pretty that it could be used again and again to store
mementos, from locks of hair to letters from a loved
one. The decoration of the boxes grew increasingly
elaborate until the outbreak of World War II, when
sugar was rationed and Valentine’s Day celebrations
were scaled down.
According to a recent survey compiled by Warner
Leisure Hotels, more than 35 million heart shaped
boxes of chocolate will be sold here in the UK for
Valentine’s Day.
It all started with a poem
The medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, perhaps better known for his
‘Canterbury Tales’ may well have invented Valentine’s Day.
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FEBRUARY 2016