Pope Gelasius I gets much of the credit for fixing February 14 as Saint Valentine’s feast day back in 496 AD. He declared it to honour the martyred priest Valentine and possibly to replace the pagan festival Lupercalia, which fell around the same time.
But the romantic angle? That came later. Geoffrey Chaucer and medieval poets in the 1300s started linking mid-February with courtly love and choosing sweethearts. Over centuries, the Church’s official date mixed with literary tradition, folk customs, and eventually commercial card companies to cement February 14 as the day for romance.
So it’s part papal decree, part poetic tradition, part cultural evolution. No single person “decided” the romantic bit, it just grew organically.
Read the history of Valentine’s Day, check the Saint Valentine story. For more questions about Valentine’s Day, go here.