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“Awake, ye lovers, out of your slombringe,
This glade morowe, in al the haste ye may;
Some observaunce dothe unto this day,
Your choyse ayen of herte to renewe,
In confyrmyng for ever to be trewe.”
(John Lydgate, Flower of Courtesy, lines 10-14)
John Lydgate (1370?–1451?) follows in the footsteps of
Chaucer and Gower, solidifying the tradition of choosing one's
mate on Saint Valentine's Day and its association with the
mating of the birds. In Lydgate's Flower of Courtesy
we see the true genesis and encouragement of familiar Valentine's
Day practices. He, however, was the first to refer to one's
chosen love as one's ‘Valentyne.'
   
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John Lydgate at His Desk
Circa 1515. Engraving. In Henry Noble MacCracken,
The Minor Poems of John Lydgate (London: Early English
Text Society, 1911): frontispiece.
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