Jack B. Oruch, in SpeculumValentine (JUI~1981), The Medieval Academy, 1430
Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass.
02138.
Every February 14, candy and flower shops prosper as Valentine's Day sweethearts celebrate a love feast usually traced historians to pagan Roman traditions. But the shopkeepers should thank English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400) instead, asserts Omch, a University of Kansas English professor.
Modern academics believe that St. Valentine was a churchman who cured a crippled...