Notes and Queries/Series 7/Volume 5/Number 112/Valentine’s or Valentines’ Day

Notes.

VALENTINE’S OR VALENTINES’ DAY.

(See especially 1st S. i. 293; x. 5; 3rd S. iii. 128, 169; ix. 156; 4th S. xi. 129, 173; 5th S. v. 141; ix. 418.)

A good deal has been written in ‘N. & Q.’ upon the subject of Valentine’s Day and St. Valentine, but I believe that I have quoted above the most important notes. It would seem that the observance of peculiar customs, either on that day or on the first Sunday in Lent, has been almost exclusively confined to France (especially the northern part of it; see Simrock’s ‘D. Myth.,’ third edit., p. 284) and Great Britain; and, from a remark in Bescherelle that “Chaque jeune fille Écossaise avait aussi son Valentin,” it looks as if these customs originated in France and came to us in England through Scotland. In 5th S. v. 141 there is a long and interesting note by the then Editor (Dr. Doran) on the observance of the festival in France both in bygone days and now, and, according to what is said there, it was never celebrated on February 14, but either on the first Sunday in Lent or on Innocents’ Day (December 28). But this can scarcely be absolutely correct, inasmuch as Ménage (s. v. “Valentin”) tells us that, in the seventeenth century at any rate, it was on “le jour de St. Valentin” (February 14) that ladies drew by lot for those gentlemen who were to serve them as gallants (galants) or valentines (valentins) for the whole year (i. e., I suppose, until February 14 in the following year). In the first instance, however, it would seem that it was on the first Sunday in Lent that the festival was celebrated in France, as it is still (according to Dr. Doran) “in several cities in France.” But the customs which prevailed upon that day seem to have been different in different parts of France, and the name of the day to have varied with the customs. The most common name appears to have been le jour (or more commonly le Dimanche) des brandons, brandon generally meaning “torch,” because torches were carried about on that day, but at Lyons green branches to which cakes were attached. See Roquefort s.v. “Brandon” and Ducange s.v. “Brandones.” But other names were le jour des grands feux, des bulles ou des bures, le Dimanche des bordes, and lastly le jour des Valentins. See Roquefort, ibid., and Ducange, s.vv. “Dies focorum,” “Bordæ,” and “Buræ,” though Ducange has nothing that I can find concerning “le jour des Valentins.” Now, s.v. “Valantin,” Roquefort says:—

“Futur époux, celui qu’on désignoit à une fille le jour des brandons, ou premier dimanche de carême, qui, dèsqu’elle étoit promise, se nommoit valantine; et si son valantin ne lui faisoit point un présent^[1] ou ne la régaloit avant le dimanche de la mi-carême, elle le brûloit sous l’effigie d’un paquet de paille ou de sarment, et alors les promesses de mariage étoient rompues et annulées.”^[2]

It is evident, therefore, that in the expression le jour des valentins,^[3] valentins is used of the young men selected as gallants or future husbands, and has nothing to do with the saint, excepting in so far as the young men may have taken their designation from him. And, consequently, if, as is very likely, our Valentine’s Day is an English rendering of le jour des Valentins, we ought to write Valentines’ Day, as meaning the day of valentines, and not Valentine’s Day = the day of Valentine. And the absence of the word Saint points to this conclusion also, for I do not know that in this Protestant country a saint has been robbed of his saintship, as he has occasionally been in Catholic France. So if the day of St. Valentine had been intended, we should have called it St. Valentine’s Day.

I notice that all the correspondents of ‘N. & Q.’ who have troubled themselves about the derivation of the word valentine (See 3rd S. iii. 128; 5th S. v. 141; ix. 289, 418) agree in deriving it not from the name of the saint, but from galantin (=petit galant), the g being changed into v. And this view they support either by quoting dictionaries of Norman patois, such as Dubois and Duméril, in which valentin is given =galantin, or other French authors who have written about Normandy, and who have expressed this opinion. I cannot, however, myself see that this view, which has also the support of Mr. Smythe Palmer (‘Folk-Etymology’), is worthy of much attention. It is, indeed, true that in French a Lat. v and a Teut. w have sometimes become g, but here just the contrary is postulated, and we are told that a French g has become a v in the Norman dialect. Now I am bound to admit that a French g does sometimes correspond to Norman v, as in varet (=guéret), varou (=garou), vaule (=gaule), vé (=gué), vêpe (=guêpe), vic or vi (=gui), vimblet (=guimbelet, our gimlet), vipillon (=goupillon), and viquet (=guichet, our wicket); but in all these cases the Norman v represents an original Lat. or Scandinavian v or a Teut. w,^[4] whereas in valentin=galantin the Norman v represents an original g, inasmuch as galant is now generally considered to be connected with the O. Fr. gale (=joie, réjouissance), galer (=danser, sauter, se réjouir), with the It. gala, and to be derived from a Teutonic root gal. See Roquefort, Littré, Brachet, and Skeat.^[5] And again, if the Norman valentin is really a corruption, or rather variant, of galantin, why do we not also find in that dialect valant=galant?

I myself prefer, therefore, to consider that valentin came to have the signification of galant or galantin (which, according to Ménage and Roquefort, it seems to have had in other places besides Normandy) simply because the festival on which the galants were chosen, and which was originally held on the first Sunday in Lent, came in some parts of France to be identified with St. Valentine’s Day. Such an identification can scarcely be regarded as difficult, for the first Sunday in Lent commonly falls in February, must often fall within a very few days of the 14th, and sometimes on the very day itself. It is very much in this way that Ménage explains the matter; and I would refer the reader also to F. C. H.’s note at 3rd S. iii. 169, where the history of poetical valentines is also gone into.^[6]

F. Chance.

Sydenham Hill.

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1. This custom of giving presents is another point of identity between le jour des brandons and our Valentine’s Day, for we learn from the note 4th S. xi. 129 that they were commonly given in the time of Pepys, and that the practice still prevails to an alarming extent in Norwich (see also 1st S. i. 293; x. 5; and 4th S. xi. 173, which notes are exclusively devoted to the practice in Norwich).
2. I find also in Roquefort, s.v. “Vausenottes,” “La cérémonie de crier les valantins; les garçons se nommoient vausenots et les filles vaussenottes.” He gives as the derivation vocare and nuptiæ, but this appears to me absurd.
3. Roquefort writes valentin in one place and valantin in the other. He had, very likely, two different derivations in his head.
4. May be an instinctive, though unconscious, reversion to their old Scandinavian tongue.
5. The correspondents of ‘N. & Q.’ alluded to are, however, consistent, for they take galant to come from the Latin valens, and if this were so, then their idea that the Norman valentin is a form of galantin might have some foundation.
6. According to Jamieson the term was in the sixteenth century also “given to the sealed letters sent by royal authority to chieftains, landholders, &c., for the purpose of apprehending disorderly persons.”