Geoffrey Chaucer and Oton de Graunson, as members of the retinue of the Duke of Lancaster, were thrown into close personal association, and Chaucer's translation of some of Oton's balades affords conclusive evidence that literary connections also existed between the two poets. The full extent of Oton's influence upon Chaucer can not now be accurately determined, inasmuch as some of Oton's poems have been lost and even of those which have been preserved some are still difficult of access. We are specially fortunate, therefore, in having available a sequence of Valentine poems by Graunson, who seems to have been the first to popularize this type of verse in fourteenth-century England. Chaucer himself, notably in the Parlement of Foules and the Complaint of Mars, also took part in this cult of Saint Valentine's Day, and there thus seems reason to expect that an examination of Oton's Valentine poems may supply evidence which will be helpful in interpreting these Chaucerian pieces.