A Middle English Poem on a Binding Fragment: an Early Valentine?

Abstract

On the parchment binding fragment which is now Cambridge, Trinity College, R.2.70 are twenty-five lines of Middle English verse, copied in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and accompanied by an image of a pierced heart. Preceded by a couplet which may or may not form a part of what follows, the lines take the form of three rhyme royal stanzas with concluding four-line envoy. They constitute a lover’s petition, addressed to ‘Susane’, asking for merciful treatment and offering compliments of a mostly conventional kind. The tone of the poem is difficult to assess, since at times it humorously mocks features of the late medieval courtly love lyric. Certain features identify it as a love epistle, however, signed off in covert terms by the sender in the envoy, and intended for delivery at some point towards the end of winter; and it is similar in a number of respects to surviving examples of poems associated with Valentine’s day. The original function of the parchment on which the poem was written is unclear, but it is within the bounds of possibility that the decorated poem was copied on to a single small piece of parchment as a missive for delivery. It may thus constitute a very early example of a Valentine’s day message.