The Rest Is History - 151. Valentine's Day

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Happy Valentine's Day! Have you ever wondered why we send each other cards and go out to Carluccio's for dinner on a weeknight? In today's episode, Tom and Dominic drill down into the details - what are its origins? Why were 'Vinegar' Valentines so brutal? And what was an optician's role in Al Capone's St Valentine's Day Massacre? Join The Rest Is History Club for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishist the baskets overflowed on the floor. And there were Valentine parcels and Valentine hampers. Half of the Valentines were really dainty, tasteless things. Many were decoratively printed on satin with fine lace borderings and little golden thread tassels. But at least one fourth were coarse and offensive, too much so for descriptions. Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

Those are the words of a post office clerk who is remembering the late Victorian period, which is in some ways the heyday, I would say, of Valentine's Day. Tom, are you a great enthusiast for Valentine's Day? Not normally. And the simple reason for that is that Sadie, my beloved wife, is very, very hostile to displays of commercialised sentimentality. And so she gets very cross if I give her a Valentine's Day card or do anything like that.

Although, excitingly, I am taking her out tonight. Oh, that's nice. So that's good. However, I think, I mean, you know, being lovely on Valentine's Day is all well and good. But you were saying in that that a quarter of the cards were coarse and offensive. Well, I have some splendidly offensive Valentine's cards to come in the second half of this episode. So don't go away if you want to hear really offensive Valentine's Day messages. And I can absolutely vouch for that because you've been texting them to me, some of them.

And they really are coarse and offensive. So that is something definitely to look forward to. That gives you a sense of the kind of banter that we do off when we're not recording. Sending each other Victorian ditties. So, but Dominic, Valentine's Day, why are we celebrating it? That's the kind of the big question, isn't it? I don't know, because basically all the questions we had on Twitter and on the Discord for Restless History Club members,

they sort of came from the same, well, they came at it at the same angle that people approach Christmas and Easter and things, didn't they? Sort of, is it a pagan festival that has been crudely taken over by the by the catholic church or is it a hallmark holiday that has been invented by marketing men in tuscaloosa the whole the whole thing is unbelievably complicated yeah and i reckon it's more complicated than christmas or easter because at least complicated well the thing is with christmas and easter it reckon it's more complicated than Christmas or Easter. More complicated. Well, the thing is, with Christmas and Easter, it's pretty clear why they're happening. The birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, these are key events in the life of the central figure in Christianity.

But with Valentine, it's a lot more complicated because who is St. Valentine? How many Valentines were there? When was he martyred? Was he martyred? Did he exist? What happened to him? I hope you're going to answer those questions because I don't know the answers. So the problem is I don't think that there are any absolute, historically guaranteed answers to this.

So there are multiple St. Valentines. There's not one canonical Valentine. Okay. So in the Roman martyrology, which is the current kind of compendium of people who were martyred, you get at Rome on the Via Flaminia by the Milvian Bridge, St. Valentine Martyr. So the Via Flaminia is the road that leads from Rome to the Adriatic,

kind of over the Apennines. Milvian Bridge will be familiar to all fans of Constantine. That's where he won his great victory. So St. Valentine, the problem is there was also another Valentine who was the Bishop of Turney, which is a place 60 miles north of Rome. And basically he has the same name. He was a martyr. The Roman martyrology is now saying that these are the same people.

But they're not. Well, we don't know. We don't know. I mean, maybe they are, maybe they're not. But I mean, if they've got the same date, the same name, the assumption usually is that they're the same person. But then adding to the complication, there's another Valentine who was the Bishop of Genoa, whose feast day is the second of may and that is important because that comes in later for the question of how and why valentine's valentine comes to be associated with romance so it's it's an absolute kind of snarl and not um so probably there is a valentine there was a valentine he was martyred um his relics were preserved but the stories that then start to accumulate how historically accurate these are i you know very very hard to say but almost certainly they're not accurate i would i would guess um so when is he martyred uh 14th february so that's

yeah that's why we have his feast day on the 14th of fe. And late traditions say that it was in the reign of Claudius, the Emperor Claudius. All right. So pretty early. Really? Well, no, because it doesn't fit in historically with the early Emperor Claudius, the stutterer, the hero of. There's a later Emperor Claudius, right?

There is. In the third century? I don't know, fourth century? Claudius Gothicus. So when's he? Roughly. So he is 268 to 70 he he reigns so he is a product of the third century um implosion of of the roman empire and he's one of those kind of breed of rugged tough novak djokovic type um emperors from the balkans who uh he's been deported from australia and yeah that

kind of thing well so he he's he's very he's um he's rough he's tough uh there's a story that he punched a horse in the mouth knocked out all his teeth so he'd be sacked as a primary school teacher if he did that wouldn't he absolutely would yeah he'd get in trouble if he was a footballer um no it wasn't it was a cat wasn get in trouble if he was a footballer. No, it wasn't. It was a cat, wasn't it?

He was. Yeah. The Premier League footballer was a cat. I didn't think we'd get here in a session of Valentine's Day, but I'm glad we have. Yeah. So he's, so this,

this Claudius is the second one is very keen on punching out teeth. So there's, there's a story that he, he punched a horse in the mouth and all the horse's teeth went flying. Okay. And then he was in a wrestling match and his opponent reached out and grabbed him by the bollocks. And so predictably, Claudius smashed him in the face and knocked out all his teeth. So that's very much his party trick. And when the emperor is in the process of implosion, it's obviously the kind of talents that you need yeah so he ends up becoming emperor and he's a very

good emperor he's a strong military leader he defeats the alamani he defeats the goths so that's why he gets his the name gothicus um and then he dies of um plague so one of the uh one of the horrendous plagues that sweeps over the roman empire in the third century um and so possibly it's this claudius but the problem is that as you will gather from the synopsis i've given he's not actually around in rome very much to go around martyring people but he's he's off punching he doesn't he doesn't see horses in the teeth on the frontier he doesn't sound like a friend of romance right i mean no he's not the kind of man who'd be immortalized in a middle american greetings card so well no but but but the thing is that he's martyring valentine yeah yeah no so the so the stories are kind of these these these are increasingly medieval legends that um

valentine is a christian at a time when it's illegal to be a christian he is um he gets arrested by a judge. He then converts the judge. Further stories say that the daughter of the judge fell in love with him and that he teaches her to love Jesus and all this kind of stuff. And then Claudius comes in, also very fond of Valentine, tries to persuade Valentine to give up his Christianity, ends up having him martyred. And the story is he gets beaten to death with clubs so you've got all these kind of various folkloric yeah mythic um elements of the story that get elaborated over the middle ages and then once you start to get the association with romance that will come to then they you start to get kind of daughters of judges and

daughters of emperors all get fed into the story. But in its initial form, there's nothing erotic or romantic in this story at all, unless you find punching horses in the face. There is absolutely nothing, nothing romantic at all. But is there not an existing festival around this time in the Roman calendar, Tom? Is this the time of the Lupercalia? Have I got that right? You have.

So we've got a question on that from Jim Wackett. Is Valentine's Day a genuine example of a pagan Roman festival, the Lupercalia, that was Christianized and associated with the Saints' Day? Yeah. So this is the equivalent to the idea that Christmas is, you know, the Saturnalia with a different name. Exactly. Well, so I will describe what went on with the lupicalia and you can see see what you think um so so the lupicalia was celebrated um kind of in the middle of february so 13th 14th 15th that kind of period so you've got you have got the 14th of february kind of bang in the middle of that um it took place around the Palatine running into the forum.

So the Palatine is the hill in Rome that ends up becoming the Imperial. Yeah. Well, the palace, obviously. But it's a very ancient festival. And it's, well, it's not the kind of festival that would generate, I think, a huge number of Hallmark cards. So what you have to do, you mark the festival by offering up various goats and a dog in sacrifice.

And you take their blood. See, everybody, no one minds the sacrifice of goats, do they? But as soon as you mention the dog, a lot of listeners will be rolling their eyes and saying, dead dogs again. I think people quite like goats as well. they yeah i think so i think we're less affection we're less sentimental i agree yes i agree i agree but anyway sorry i've i've sidetracked you let's talk about the loop calia yeah so so you you you these dead goats yeah there's dead dog you mix the blood you wipe it on the brows of two small boys, and then you immediately wipe it clean again. And this is the key thing. The boys then have to burst out into wild laughter.

And if that doesn't work, then they have to do the whole thing over again. Wow. So there's a lot of pressure on those boys. Yeah. Well, if you're a goat or a dog, obviously, obviously you know and you're lined up in case the boys don't laugh there's a lot at stake anyway so that happens and then what happens is women will basically kind of strip themselves uh will go topless and they'll all gather around the kind of the spurs of the hill of the palatine yeah and the the men who are taking part in the Lupercalia will strip right, right down to kind of very, very skimpy thongs.

And they will then start running round the spurs of the Palatine. Yeah. And as they go by, they will be carrying a kind of goat thong and they will whip the bare-breasted women with the goat thong. And this is in obedience to an oracle that had been given to the Romans where it said the sacred goat must enter the mothers of Italy. So obviously there are various ways in which a sacred goat could enter the mothers of Italy. This is in a way the least intrusive

the most decorous this is the most decorous way of doing it and it's a way of of um stopping um stillbirths does it work um i'm guessing well yes it does no it does it does and so this is why uh women offer themselves up to the lash uh they get you know get smacked over the breasts with the the goat thong and then they they all you know pregnancies work so so there you go so so that's the lupicalia there's a brilliant description of this actually in your book rubicon isn't it mark anthony do it yeah mark so mark anthony does it yes uh and um that's the one where he ends up offering caesar the crown yeah so that's why it's yes that's sort of running through the streets isn't he yeah mark anthony's very much the kind of guy who would enjoy running around rome in a skimpy loincloth

yeah whipping whipping women over their breasts with a goat thong the sort of bad behavior of the bullying clubs of history is a definite theme of this podcast and that is absolutely on trend isn't it well so so you so this idea that there's an obvious line of descent from the Lupercalia to St. Valentine's Day, it's not obvious. No, it's not. And actually, if a Roman were transplanted into the 21st century, you said, this is what Lupercalia has become.

Yes. Get yourself down to Clinton Gardens. Very disappointing. I very disappointing immensely disappointed very dull the lupicala is a very popular ceremony it has very very you know deep roots in the roman past and it's not until right at the end of the fifth century that it it gets banned it's bad it's actually banned it doesn't die out it's banned by a pope called galatius who's who's you know he objects to it um so i think it's kind of uh 496 or something like that it gets banned by a Pope called Galatius who's, you know, he objects to it. So I think it's kind of 496 or something like that.

It gets banned by him. So the question then is, well, how and why does Valentine come to be associated with romance? So you said that a lot of festivals, you know, we assume that they're American. Yeah. The current thinking is that actually Valentine's Day is probably English. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. That's good. And it seems to have emerged against the backdrop of the great literary revolution at the end of the 14th century.

With Chaucer. Chaucer and John Gower and all kinds of people like that. And the first kind of mention that we get in English poetry is in a poem by Chaucer called The Parliament of Fowls. Yeah. Fan of The Parliament of Fowls? I've seen bits of it on the internet. Seen the film. Yeah, seen the film yeah it's in the cartoon it's great now tell me about the parliament of fouls tom you know i know nothing about it at all okay so the parliament of fouls is an interesting poem yeah

um because it's the first uh poem that actually mentions the word election in the sense that we use it now of kind of choosing right you know choosing someone to to represent you politically. Did election have a previous meaning? Yeah. What does it mean? Well you know the the election of you know it's are you part of the elect that kind of thing. Oh I see okay okay okay so this means an election as in a kind of democratic. An election as in the general election that we yeah we'd have now um and so the plot of it is that Chaucer is reading a book by Cicero, The Dream of Scipio, and he falls asleep. Scipio appears to him, leads him up through the celestial spheres,

and he finds himself in the Temple of Venus, and he walks through the Temple of Venus, and it's very dark, and there are images of unhappy lovers and then he comes out into this um this kind of bright meadow a hill of flowers and all the birds are there and it's their parliament and this parliament shows the lords you know so the top birds yeah but also the commons so it's the first representation in poetry of what would become the parliamentary system and the backdrop to this is the you know that's kind of the wave of weird parliaments that you get at the end of the 14th century

yeah kind of the good parliament and the the bad parliament and all those kind of various parliaments there must be other parliaments than are good and bad. Anyway, so among all this, what's happening in this parliament is that the birds are choosing their mates. Mates as in romantic others rather than mates. And you get this verse. For this was on St. Valentine's Day when every fowl cometh there to choose his make

of every kind that men think may and that's a huger noise can they make that earth and air and tree and every lake so full was that underneath was their space for me to stand so full was all the place i liked that uh sam gamgee rendition that you gave initially thank you thank you thank you very yeah, I mean, so I think you do want to imagine these birds in a kind of a shire, an idyllic landscape, green hills, all that kind of stuff. And the implication of this is that it's the time of year when, you know, spring is coming, the end of winter, thoughts turn to romance. And so that, I think, is why it's Valentine is associated with, you know, it's the time of year. It's the beginning of spring. It's the sap rising, all that kind of stuff. But again, the question is, why is Chaucer fixing on Valentine's Day?

And it's not just Chaucer who's doing this. So John Gower, who is Moral Gower, Chaucer calls him um who's another poet writes in english but also writes in latin writes in french and in one of these french poems gower um describes saint valentine greater than any emperor holding a parliament and assembly of all the birds who come on his day where the female takes her mate in proper love so again this kind of weird thing what what you know what is going on here and these guys one of them is not copying the other they're both doing it coincidentally do you think or well gower and chaucer are friends so there is debate about this yeah about who comes

first and it's and the precise dating of chaucer's poem is important because one of the theories about what's going on here and why it's being written is that it marks the treaty of marriage that is being signed between Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, which takes place in 1381. But here is the twist. Is it on the 14th of February, Dominic? Or is it on the 2nd of May, which you'll remember. Was another Valentine's Day. Was the feast day of the Valentine who is the Bishop of Genoa. Gosh, the stakes are high on this, Tom. Well, there's no answer.

There's no answer. I mean, we don't know is the answer. But isn't this also, is the backdrop to all this, that it's the age of courtly love and sort of chivalric romances? And so the whole business about choosing a mate and the sort of, you imagine the sort of almost like the ritualistic dances or something at the courts. This is part of that, isn't it?

It absolutely is. So all that language of courtly love, I mean, Chaucer is very keen on that, translating the romance of the rose, all that kind of stuff, you know, the theory and myths and all that kind of, you know, Lancelot and Guinevere, all that kind of thing. And it just seems to be part of the language of the English court at this period. Yeah. And over the course of the 15th century, so Richard II gets toppled, henry the fourth who replaces him and then friend of the show henry the fifth yeah and in the reign of henry the fifth it really starts to pick up so the very first valentine that we have surviving so you know a poem written to someone asking them

to be their valentine is by charles the duke of orleans who was captured at agincourt who gets brought back to england and locked up in the tower and he's there in the tower for kind of years and years and years um and and he writes um to his wife i am sick of love my very gentle valentine je suis déjà d'amour tannay matre douce valentine so he calls her his Valentine. So that expression, be my Valentine, people are using it in the 15th century. My very sweet Valentine. But when he's calling her his Valentine, does he mean, you know, you are the spirit of St. Valentine? Or has the word Valentine taken on this kind of romantic meaning at that point? I mean, obviously, presumably the latter.

I think the latter, yeah. And so the process by which, you know, what it is that joins Chaucer and Gower's poems in the English court to Charles, Duke of Orléans coming up with this. I mean, he's in England. He's at the English court. So presumably that's where he's picked it up. And you then get John Lydgate, who's a poet from the reign of Henry V and after.

And he's writing in honor of Queen Catherine. Yeah, Catherine of Valois. Who's married Henry V and been left widowed and will go on to marry Owen Tudor. And he again refers to valentine's day to look and search cupid's calendar and choose their choice by great affection so there you've got the idea of of a valentine is someone that you choose so like a knight choosing his lady yeah so on valentine's day you choose your valentine um and by the end towards the end of the 15th century you've got the past and letters past letters are have i think three references to people becoming valentines so um marjorie

bruise writing to her future husband calls him my right well beloved valentine and the idea is also then starts to pick up through into the 16th century that you send tokens to your valentine but these are people you're already you're already betrothed or married to, right? These are not just random people that you've got your eye on kind of thing. Well, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule because this is an evolving tradition. Yeah. So the fact that the feast day of Valentine gets abolished by Edward VI, with you know the reformation kicks in so saint's day's in for dig but valentine's day is is kept as the expression of an evolving tradition where there are kind of various possibilities so by the 17th century yeah

there are various ways in which you can choose a valentine so there's the one that we would understand that you you know there's a beautiful woman uh or indeed beautiful man and you um you know you you send the equivalent of a card a valentine card yeah so what someone who does that is um the future james ii the duke of york who um sees lady Frances Stewart who is reputedly the most beautiful of all the uh the women at Charles II's court um becomes the model for Britannia um and he gives her a jewel worth 800 pounds as a valentine that's a lot of money in modern times I mean it is so that's better than a card then there's there's uh this idea that you can um that you you you get your valentine by lot and so there are kind of various jokes made throughout the 17th century

that this is how um public officials should be chosen all right so people say choose a public official like a valentine's yeah yeah interesting yeah yeah and then the third one is so this is a report from a dutch visitor who comes to england in um 60 63 it is customary alike for married as for unmarried people that the first person one meets in the morning that is if one is a man the first woman or girl becomes one's valentine he asks her name which he takes down and carries on a long strip of paper in his hat band in the same way the woman or girl wears his name on her bodice and then you get presents from them so um it's a kind of nice idea that this is all done at completely at random that's not that isn't i like that idea

but of course it's quite high risk yes and the dutch visitor goes on to say that actually this gets kind of planned in advance yeah so you know the girl will be lurking around the corner waiting for the boy to run past or whatever oh that's good i like that so you i mean you you have the sense of this this tradition emerging nobody quite knows how but it's associated with the feast day of valentine yeah and then valentine becomes associated with all the you know this idea that you you choose a valentine and that it's romantic well that at this point you see it's quite it is quite romantic and it's not commercialized is it there's no because how could it be because there's no infrastructure of sort of commercialism that could really exploit it i mean that's that's

true isn't it it's not commercialized at this point well unless you're the jeweler supplying the duke of york i suppose yes and i think that's probably the case into the 18th century tom because i know the georgians were very keen on valent, weren't they? Well, the only thing I've got about the Georgians is that by the 18th century, you're starting to get Catholics, and indeed, you know, Christians of all denominations, but particularly Catholics, who are starting to raise their eyebrows at what's going on. And it's, as far as I can tell, it's not a kind of, you know, a mocking philosoph or an atheist who points out, who tries to kind of draw this, you know, the idea that St. Valentine's Day is a mutation of the Lupercalia. It's actually Catholics who are doing it, who are opposed to the idea of Valentine's Day. That's very weird. Why would they be opposed to it?

Because they, maybe because they don't want to give ammunition to Protestants who think it's just flummery and stuff. So you've got Butler, say Butler as in Butler's Lives, you know, the great kind of compendium of saints' lives that gets written in the 18th century. And he says that to abolish the heathens' lewd superstition custom of boys drawing the names of girls in honour of their goddess Februta Juno on the 15th of this month several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets given on this day but that's not going to catch on is it i mean that's no but it's not true but it's not true but it's he's trying to explain how it is that um valentine has become associated with romance and to do that he has to posit that there is a festival a pagan festival that didn't exist that is a match to the idea of people you know kind of choosing one another's valentines so the whole thing is kind of structured but it's it's

basically expressive of the fact that we we don't know really what the origins of this but in a way it doesn't really matter does it because by the mid-18th century it's become embedded in the kind and kind of folk tradition you know the 14th by this point everybody knows that the 14th of february is valentine's day there's a brilliant website called all things georgian which has a whole list of things that happened on valentine's day in the georgian period from newspapers so this is from reed's weekly journal the 16th of february 1751 it says thursday one m Mann, aged upwards of 60, who keeps a cook and chandler's shop in Shoreditch,

was married to a soldier caught in that neighbourhood, aged about 22. That's quite a big age gap. Being asked by a neighbour, how could she think of marriage at these years? She replied it was Valentine's Day and she was resolved to be coupled. Now you might think, what's in it for the soldier?

I mean, there's not many 22-year-old young men who want to marry 60-year-old women. And the answer is in the next line. The old gentleman had, by her frugality and industry, collected upwards of 200 pounds, which she freely bestowed on her new love. That is so romantic. What a romantic story.

That is so romantic. I bet that's a union that ended well. But how about this one, Tom, from 1784, from the Morning Herald. It may be worth remarking that on last Valentine's Day, a couple were married in St. Peter's Church Derby who had between them seven thumbs, vis the woman three and the man four. Wow.

That's more than Anne Boleyn. Yeah. I mean, that's a heck of a lot. That's more thumbs than you need. But that's more than anne boleyn yeah i mean that's a lot that's a heck of a lot that's more thumbs than you need but that's an astonishing coincidence if they just happen to run into each other but they'd obviously have loads to talk about no but they must have met at some thumb support group it must be yeah goodness does it doesn't say how they met no it doesn't the morning herald is very poor reporting it's the obvious question yeah it's but it's it's lazy journalism

okay so so it's um the hints of the commercial are there i guess well the fact that they're reporting it and then they're reporting it yeah and you've got print, I think, and people are buying it, newspapers. Once people are buying things, then you have. So, Dominic. Yeah. At the start, you read out that brilliant thing of the postman being engulfed by letters. Yes. And I've been looking forward to hearing more about the course and offensive Valentine's he got sent. So we should have a break and come back to that. But just before we go, by the 19th century in the church,

the idea of Valentine's Day as a day for romance and love is starting to be integrated. So do you know where the skull of a Valentine is in Rome? One of the churches in Rome. Well, one of the Valentines. Yeah, exactly. But do you know where the rest of them are the rest of the relics no uh they're in wiltshire no doubt no they're in dublin are they yeah they're in the um they're in the church of our lady of mount carmel white friar street why are they there i'll tell

you there was a very famous irish carmelite preacher called John Spratt. Right. And he went to Rome and he gave a sermon, a homily. And it was very, very much appreciated. And the Pope seems to have heard it. And so he sent the relics of Valentine to the Carmelite church in Dublin as a token of his appreciation. That's kind. And so there's a little note, came with a little note.

It was taken out of the cemetery of St. Hippolytus in the Tiburtine Way and it arrived in Dublin on the 10th of December, 1836. And if you go there now, it's very moving. There's a kind of statue of Valentine looking kind of rosy-cheeked.

Yeah. Rosy-cheeked and pink-lipped. So he's sort of turned into Cupid, I imagine. Has he? He has a slight hint of Cupid, the statue, yes. But there's a book there, and people can write if they're unhappy in love or if they're looking for love.

Oh, Lonely Hearts. Yeah, a kind of spiritual Lonely Hearts book. And it's very touching. So I saw it on my last trip to Dublin when we were we had a compendium of unexpected things in Dublin right and the relics of Saint Valentine were quite high on that list so we went to see them that sounds that sounds very romantic Tom yeah and not at all so not at all coarse and inoffensive which is what I hope no so we're striking after the after the break.

Can't wait. See you in a minute. Okay, bye-bye. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works.

We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back to our Valentine's Day edition of The Rest Is History. And excitement is rising because Dominic is about to tell us about the great Victorian tradition of coarse and offensive Valentines.

Well, you just have to wait a little bit longer for the coarse and offensive messages because I want to build up to them. Because we talked about how Valentine's Day had become sort of embedded in the Georgian imagination in the 18th century. And it's in Georgian Britain, I think in the second half of the century that you start to get pre-printed cards. So the ancestors of Valentine's cards. So if you think Valentine's cards were invented by American manufacturers, you are quite wrong. The Americans got the idea from us, from the British. And so first of all, people, Tom, have you ever handmade a Valentine's card? No. No, neither have I. Well, we're very poor compared with our Georgian predecessors

because they would handmake them. People started to make what they called mechanical Valentines, which were kind of mass-produced printed ones. I think the first example of a surviving one is in York, York Castle Museum, and it was sent by katherine moss day to a mr brown of london and it's decorated with pictures of cupid so we talked about cupid what's mechanical about it was made by a machine it's printed oh i see i was kind of imagining a moving one no kind of like a box the kind of heart leaps out at you yeah a spring. No, no, no. It's just a nice message.

Since on this ever happy day, all nature's full of love and play, yet harmless still, if my design, tis but to be your Valentine. That's beautiful. It's nice, isn't it? I'm going to be reading a lot of poems in this second half, so be warned. And there's actually, in the same year, 1797, somebody publishes a book called The Young Man's Valentine Writer. So a manual about how to write nice Valentine poems.

So this sort of becomes more and more popular. And people basically, they're not sealing them in envelopes, they're not cards, they're sort of pieces of paper that you fold over. And they'll have lace on and threads and they'll be very sort of pretty but the big turning point tom you know i have a weird interest it will not an interest in but a knowledge of the history of the post office i do dominic i commend to the public my own audio book on the history of the post office called the people's post very good very good radio 4 series which you can buy uh at all good audio book retailers can you so you can yeah you can well yeah all good audiobook retailers. Can you? You can. Yeah, you can.

Is it? Wow. Yeah. I've probably got the best reviews of anything I've ever done, basically because I was merely the front man. Wow. I must have listened to it. And actual experts did all the work.

I thought I'd kept abreast of all your oeuvre, but who you are. No, sadly not. So there are tens of thousands of Valentine's cards being sent in Britain, supposedly in the 1830s. But the real turning point is in 1840 when you have for the first time the penny post so before then tom if you sent a letter the recipient had to pay for it so um the penny post is this great revolution by this postal reformer called roland hill and the innovation is you pay a penny so it's democratizing communications and encouraging literacy and so on you pay a penny and you can send a letter anywhere and the recipient doesn't have to

pay for it at all. So it's the penny post in 1840 that gives you basically stamps. It gives us letterboxes and doors. There weren't letterboxes before because you would knock on the door to get the recipient to pay you. And it also creates pillar boxes. So it's designed, of course, by Anthony Trollope, the novelist. Yeah, the ancestor of Al Murray.

So what happens with all this is that letter writing becomes anonymous. You can post your letter. You don't have to hand your letter in and all that. So the possibility for the anonymous Valentine's card, where the recipient doesn't have to pay for, so they get they get it as it were for free um starts to become so this sort of spreads in the mid-19th century so blackwoods magazine says the post office system offers a facility for clandestine correspondence which

no respectable father or mother on the european side of the atlantic would think of without a shudder so we think this is very kind of moral panic like it is a bit more on the internet yeah you know gk chesterton said about post boxes he said the post box is the treasure house of a thousand secrets the fortress of a thousand souls so this sort of idea that the post office has become this sort of conduit for clandestine romance. And it's true because there's this huge boom in love letters and obviously Valentine's cards in the years after the 1840s. So do you know, Tom, do you know how you would write to somebody if you fell in love with them at first sight? Do you want a letter writing manual to tell you what to say?

To write a poem, I guess. No. Dear Miss Hawley, youley you will i trust forgive this abrupt and plainly spoken letter although i've been in your company but once i cannot forbear writing to you in defiance of the rules of etiquette affection is sometimes of slow growth but sometimes it springs up in a moment i left you last night with my heart no longer my own i cannot of course hope that i've created any interest in you but will you do me the great favor to allow me to cultivate your acquaintance? So that's from Thomas Hill's book of...

Okay, I think that's wrong. I mean, I don't want to diss Thomas Hill, but I would write a poem. Do you know what Miss Hawley writes back? He gives an example in Miss Hawley's reply. Sir, your note was a surprise to me, considering that we'd never met until last evening. She sounds so feminine. And that our conversation had only been on commonplace subjects.

Your conduct is indeed quite strange. You will please be so kind as to apply to me by not repeating the request, allowing this note to close that correspondence. Yeah, exactly. So you are vindicated. I am vindicated. Yeah. So anyway, people start, you know,

because they basically can't trust themselves to write poems and, you know, they can't be bothered to copy out these passages from kind of love letter manuals. They buy printed Valentine's cards. And the king of the printed Valentine's card is a man called Jonathan King, who's a stationer in London, late Victorian stationer. And there's a collection in the Museum of London. You should go to one of your walks. They have 1,700 different cards,

examples of cards that Jonathan King made. They're often very, very fancy. Here's a good example of a card, of a message in a card. Tom, the card is made out of human hair, which is a hormone. What kind of hair? Human hair. All it says here is human hair.

From where? Human hair? All it says here is human hair fashioned into... From where? Human hair. Well, you know how Caroline Lamb expressed her devotion to Lord Byron. I do, indeed. But I bet she didn't fashion it into a moustache, which is what this card... Okay. Nothing says love. Like a lady's pubic hair fashioned into a moustache well i think you're imagining that first bit of that tom but the card that the moustache comes with a message that says for the new woman with saint valentine's heartiest greetings and best hopes she will receive another moustache with the man attached oh i see it's the man sending the moustache to the woman

yes yeah exactly okay so britain actually at this point absolutely led the world in Valentine's cards. So proud. And American publishers, American stationers would issue catalogues with lists of their imported British Valentine's cards. So I've dug one out from 1847 and the categories are absolutely splendid. Comic, sentimental, lovesick, acrostic, funny, burlesque,lesque witty arabesque it goes on and on listing all the categories and at the end it says enlivening heart aching despairing raving mad heart killing high flown lampooning romantic proposal espousal matrimonial henpecking suicidal and many other varieties suicidal suicidal but

there's a woman in uh worcester massachusetts who our american listeners may have heard of called esther howland and she basically decided that she could do better well she was she said they're too expensive all these imported british cars there's a huge market for it in america so she set up her own business did she undercut British? She did, but I think they were very good. She basically copied verses from English Valentines. It's a timeless story. And imported sort of materials from Germany and stuff. And it became a tremendous empire. And I think for half a century until it was actually overtaken by the Hallmark Company, which started up in Kansas City in 1910. Hers was basically the biggest sort of American manufacturer.

So it's a complete metaphor for the decline of British industry in the face of American and German competition. Yes, I suppose it is. They were absolutely amazing, these Valentine's cards, by the way, Tom. They were far, far better. So they were much fancier. The American ones? Well, the Americans and the British ones of the 19th century.

The real peak of people, so many of the questions we had on Discord and online were, you know, is it a 20th century phenomenon? Is it sort of a Halloween? I think that's the assumption, isn't it, in Britain, that it's basically a romantic Halloween, a commercial Americanized tradition. But actually, Valentine's Day, I would say, was much bigger between about 1840 and 1880 than it is now. And it was British manufacturers being copied by Americans. Now, you wanted coarse and offensive.

Yes, I do. The one bit of this that we've completely lost touch with is the vinegar Valentine. And there's been some splendid studies of this that particularly there's a scholar called annabella pollen at the university of brighton who i should acknowledge she's written lots of articles and stuff about this so vinegar valentines were cards to insult people and they were exceedingly popular um so for example there's they would have a sort of caption on them so here's one that the caption says miss nosy

and he would send it to a woman he disliked and it would says on account of your talk of others affairs at most dances you sit warming the chairs because of the care with which you attend to all others business you haven't a friend and dominic this would be commercially made or would yeah they're commercially made there are loads of them you'd'd go into WH Smiths or whatever, I mean, the equivalent, and you'd buy a vinegar valentine, you'd send it to rival podcasters, for example. So, for example, Tom, I might send you this. You're as vulgar a cad as I'd wish to meet,

and yet you're devoured with pride and conceit. But I fancy before very long you'll find out that everyone thinks you're an ignorant lout. Goodness. I'm receiving that. Yeah, i'd feel actually that one that one is not uh that one is not appropriate for you this one is much better it just says on the front um are you gertie gabber are you gertie gabber tom not as far as i'm aware but well wait wait for it for it. So this is what the poem says. Gertie Gabber does not know her talking can quite tiresome grow. Her tongue keeps wagging all the day and really nothing does she say.

Then there's another one called Show Off. Obviously not appropriate for you at all. No. Show Off. You claim you're good at anything. So come on, show some proof. And let me see how good you are jumping off the roof so these were they started amazing so you can buy these yeah in the american civil war soldiers would buy this one it would say on the front and they would give it to their their

doctors in their this sort of surgeons in their platoon or whatever they would said on the front to the surgeon ho ho old sore bones here you come yes when the rebels whack us you're always ready with your traps to mangle sore and hack us and you would send these on valentine's day to people you disliked but my absolute favorite one of these which i really wish somebody would um bring back um the front of the card says you are a nerve destroyer when a pig's getting slaughtered the noise that it makes is sweeter by far than your trills and your shakes and the howling of cats in the backyard at night compared with your singings a dream of delight your squalls and your balls are such torture to hear a man almost wishes he

had not an ear if someone would choke you and thus end their pain, hearty thanks from your poor distressed neighbours he'd gain. Wow. You wouldn't get away. That's top trolling, I think, is the… I mean, it really is. And the idea that this is making lots of people money. Yeah.

I mean, it makes today's internet look an absolute model of good behavior. um sort of little women emily dickinson you know uh robert browning and so on but actually you know people are sending these but it's horrendous the key i mean anonymous valentine's day yeah yeah no one knows yes exactly they're unsigned and you just think god i'm gertie gabber well no yeah or or people think i'm gertie gabber yeah i've been singing i'd say that's not true i'm not but that's what people think well that's the thing you think you've been singing by the piano to entertain your relatives night after night in that sort of victorian way but actually they wish someone would choke you um it's harsh isn't it and when did this um when did this custom kind of fade it seems to have died out

around the um end of the 19th century um i don't really know what i think there's a sort of diminution in valentine's day generally um right about the turn of the 20th century and i think any any entrepreneurial card manufacturers listening to this yeah of course there's a gap in the market don't send them to us though i mean no no the market. Don't send them to us, though. No, no. Other history podcasts are available. Send them to them, but not to us. So we've got some other stuff, haven't we? I mean, obviously, Valentine's Day, things have happened on Valentine's Day. Well, there's been a massacre, hasn't there?

So I think they've got a question on that. Skinny Dan. Yeah. The St. Valentine's Day massacre in Chicago needs a mention. It's got nothing to do with Valentine, though, has it? Or romance. Nothing says romance like gunning down like al capone yeah yeah gunning down people in garages some valentine's day massacre for those people who don't know is a um it's the shooting of seven men

on thursday the 14th of february 1929 in uh l Park, Chicago, on the north side of Chicago. It comes towards the end of the Prohibition period, when Chicago has basically become a sort of a bit of a sink, riven by gang violence between two gangs. One of them is the North Side Gang, who are mainly Irish and Polish. And the other are what's called the Chicago Outfit, who are run by Al Capone. So they're Italians.

And they're fighting mainly over the brewing and liquor distribution. The two gangs had tried to make peace but failed. Moran had sent people to go and try and kill Capone. Capone's actually spent a lot of time in Florida by now. He's that sort of gangster as celebrity. The first real gangster as celebrity, I suppose. But basically, this Thursday morning, some of his men disguise themselves as police officers.

They go into a kind of garage on the north side where some of Moran's men are. There are also two kind of bystanders. There are five of Moran's men and two bystanders. They're kind of an optician and a mechanic who are sort of caught up in the sweep and they basically line them up against a wall and machine gun them.

And they all die? They all die. And the weird thing is... So even the poor optician? Well, the optician was sort of vaguely associated with the Moran gang, as was the mechanic. They were sort of hangers-on rather than full-on kind of. But they were killed.

Seems old for an optician. Opticians are people too. You can kind of get a mechanic. Yeah, but, you know, mechanics you can see, but an optician. Yeah, but maybe if you need to be. You want to hang out with gangsters. But if you need, if you're going to be a gunman, you need good eyesight.

That's true. I mean. Yeah, spec savers. So the one, one one of the only one of them is sort of really alive at the end of it so he's dying he's called frank guzenberg he was a he was a real hoodlum for the north side gang and uh but because of the sort of omerta cult you know the sort of you can't speak and when the police arrived the police said to him he's got 14 bullet wounds the police police say to him, who shot you?

Who shot you? And he says, no one shot me. So obviously he has been shot. And he denies being shot, having been shot right up to the point where he dies. It seems absolutely self-defeating. Impressive. But the Valentine's Day massacre was very important to Tom because it was a very big scandal. It encouraged the federal government to move on capone obviously they charge him a tax evasion famously in 1932 but it helps to

bring down the city's mayor william w thompson who was corrupt and was in league with the capone people do you know what the chicago tribune said when he fell from grace no for chicago thompson has meant filth corruption obscenity idiocy bankruptcy he's given our city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery barbaric crime triumphant hoodlumism unchecked graph graft and a dejected citizenship he made chicago a byword for the collapse of american civilization nothing says romance to me more than that's moronic buffoonery um isn't is it right that um uh the involvement of the police is suspected in the valentine's well they've never they've never actually well there were two there were people disguised as police and they had police

oh okay that's what it is um but what i uh the capone all these gangs were very very tightly interwoven with the chic police and with the Chicago authorities. So actually, yes, in a way, Tom, there was such intense corruption that the dividing line between the gangsters and the police was virtually imperceptible. So yes, you're right in a way. Okay, so nothing says romance like

gulling down people in a garage. So other things happened. Captain Cook was killed. He was indeed, yes. Friend of the show. Gregory VII, my favourite Pope. He excommunicated Henry IV on this day. Oh God, you love that story.

I do. Well, we're going to do an episode on that at some point. So this is the 11th century. Yeah. Henry IV is the Emperor. Gregory VII is the Pope. They're meant to get on. They don Yeah. Henry IV is the emperor. Gregory VII is the pope. They're meant to get on. They don't.

Henry IV says to Gregory VII, step down, come down, come down, give up your papacy, to which Gregory responds by excommunicating him. And as he does so, the papal throne splits in two. Wow. You can try that. Dominic, I don't think it really happened. Oh, okay. I don't think it really happened. That's so often the case on this podcast. Dominic, I don't think it really happened. Oh, okay. I don't think it really happened.

That's so often the case on this podcast. I know, I know. But the most recent thing, of course, that happened within our lifetimes was the issuing of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie by the Ayatollah Khomeini. That's kind of vinegar Valentine of a very vinegary. That really is a vinegar Valentine, isn't it? Shame he didn't do it in rhymes. I shouldn't

laugh, but yeah, if he'd written it in a sort of Victorian style. How I hate the satanic verses. There are bad books and there are worse's. Yes. Apologies to Salman Rushdie if he's listening to this. So that was obviously

a big deal. Anyway, so I think that's pretty much Valentine's Day, isn't it? I think we've been sort of building up to that, haven't we? When I first started doing this podcast, I really wanted to get to the point where we would be issuing fast pass. Speaking in verse. I mean, I like to think of this as a Valentine's Day card to our listeners. Yes, it is, Tom, actually. And since you've said that, I think we should end with another Valentine's Day card to our listeners. Yes, it is, Tom, actually. And since you've said that,

I think we should end with another Valentine's message. This is a genuine Victorian Valentine's message. Maybe not appropriate for all our listeners, but for one or two, perhaps. The kiss of a bottle is your heart's delight and fuddled you real home to bed every night. What care you for damsels, no matter how fair? Apart from your liquor, you've no love to spare. Goodbye. What care you for damsels, no matter how fair, apart from your liquor,

you've no love to spare. Goodbye. Happy Valentine's Day. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access ad free listening and access to our chat community please sign up at rest is history pod.com that's rest is history pod.com i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets,

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