VALERIE, VALERYE1. This is the familiar name for Walter Map's Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum philosophum ne uxorem ducat, which forms Distinction IV, chapter 3, of De nugis curialium (1180-1183). A Welsh cleric, Map (c. 1140-c. 1209), became archdeacon of Oxford. During the medieval period some scholars, among them Nicholas Trevet, believed the Dissuasio to be the work of Valerius Maximus. The work gives details of the disadvantages of marriage and illustrates the unhappiness that, the author claims, lies in store for the man who marries.
Alys of Bath refers to the treatise simply as "Valerye," WBP 671, a work bound up in Jankyn's anthology. The God of Love's reference to "Valerye," LGW G 280, may indicate the Dissuasio, with its mention of Lucretia, Penelope, and the Sabine Women. Chaucer may also have meant Valerius Maximus, as in the entry below. [Crisippus: Jerome: Jovinian: Tertulan: Theofraste: Trotula: Valerius]
Valerie, the English variant of Latin Valerius, is derived in this case through pronunciation of the Latin genitive case Valerii. It appears once medially, WBP 671; Valerye, a spelling variant, appears once medially, LGW G 280.