Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It is at the beginning of the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the Christian liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed. In popular culture, Halloween has become a celebration of horror and is associated with the macabre and the supernatural.
One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots. Some theories go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallows' Day, along with its eve, by the Church. Other academics say Halloween began independently as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallows' Day.
Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants brought many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,Brunvand, Jan (editor). American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2006. p.749 and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Popular activities during Halloween include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling frightening stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films. Some Christians practice the observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, although it is a secular celebration for others. Historically, some Christians abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.Santino, p. 85All Hallows' Eve (Diana Swift), Anglican Journal
Etymology
Hallow derives from Middle English halowen, from Old English hālig meaning holy and has been used synonymously with the word saint. The word Halloween or Hallowe'en comes from the Lowland Scots form of All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day): is the Scots term for 'eve' or 'evening', and is contracted to or ; so (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Halloween. A term equivalent to 'All Hallows Eve' as attested in Old English. Thus, the name has an origin in Christianity,The A to Z of Anglicanism (Colin Buchanan), Scarecrow Press, p. 8 and means 'Saints' eve(ning)'.
History Christian origins and historical customs Halloween is influenced by Christian beliefs and practices surrounding All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day). The English word 'Halloween' comes from "All Hallows' Eve", being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November.Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2002. pp. 22, 27. . Since the time of the early Church,New Proclamation Commentary on Feasts, Holy Days, and Other Celebrations (Bill Doggett, Gordon W. Lathrop), Fortress Press, p. 92 major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows. These three days are included in the liturgical period of Allhallowtide, a time when Western Christians honour all Christian martyrs and saints, as well as pray for departed souls.
After the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, "there were more martyrs than there were days in the year, and so one day was set apart in honor of them all, and called All Saints' Day." Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime. In 4th-century Roman Edessa it was held on 13 May, and on that date in 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs". This was the date of Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead, when it was believed that restless and vengeful souls wandered.Melton, J Gordon (editor). Religious Celebrations: An Encyclopedia of Holidays, Festivals, Solemn Observances, and Spiritual Commemorations, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO, 2011. p.22 Some folklorists also suggest the ancient Roman festival of Parentalia (including Feralia) influenced All Saints' and All Souls' days.Rogers, Nicholas. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press, 2002. p.11. . Parentalia involved a commemorative meal at the graves of relatives, during which food and drink were offered to the dead, and Christian Romans continued this custom, extending it to the saints and martyrs.
There is evidence that by 800, churches in IrelandFarmer, David. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifth Edition, Revised). Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 14 and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on 1 November.Hutton, p. 364 In 835, the Frankish Empire officially adopted 1 November as the date of All Saints' Day. This may have been promoted by Alcuin of Northumbria, who was a member of Charlemagne's court, or by the Irish clerics and scholars who were also members of the Frankish court.Dales, Douglas (2013). Alcuin II: Theology and Thought. James Clarke and Co. pp. 34, 39–40 Some suggest the date was due to Celtic influence; others, that it was a Germanic idea, although it is said that both Germanic- and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter.MacCulloch, John Arnott (1911). The Religion of the Ancient Celts. Chapter 10: The Cult of the Dead . They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of "dying" in nature. It is also suggested the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health concerns over Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives during Rome's sultry summers.Burns, Paul (editor). Butler's Saint for the Day. Liturgical Press, 2007. p. 516
All Souls' Day, a feast commemorating all deceased Christians, became widespread in the 12th century. Its date was fixed on 2 November, the day after All Saints' Day. By the end of the 12th century, they had become holy days of obligation requiring church attendance in Western Christianity and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for souls in Purgatory. It was also "customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls".The World Review – Volume 4, University of Minnesota, p. 255
The Allhallowtide custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th centuryHutton, pp. 374–375 and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door to door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. This was called "souling". Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat, being laid on graves, or the "soulers" would act as their representatives.Cleene, Marcel. Compendium of Symbolic and Ritual Plants in Europe. Man & Culture, 2002. p. 108. Quote: "Soul cakes were small cakes baked as food for the deceased or offered for the salvation of their souls. They were therefore offered at funerals and feasts of the dead, laid on graves, or given to the poor as representatives of the dead. The baking of these soul cakes is a universal practice". As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating that they were baked as alms. While souling, Christians would carry "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips", which could have originally represented souls of the dead;Rogers, p. 57 later jack-o'-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits.
Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh linked the wearing of costumes to the belief in vengeful ghosts: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes". In the Middle Ages, churches in Europe that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead. Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today."Eve of All Saints", Using Common Worship: Times and Seasons – All Saints to Candlemas (David Kennedy), Church House Publishing, p. 42 Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom.Bannatyne, Lesley. Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History. Pelican Publishing, 1998. p. 9 Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre, which was often depicted in church decoration.Perry, Edward Baxter. Descriptive Analyses of Piano Works; For the Use of Teachers, Players, and Music Clubs. Theodore Presser Company, 1902. p. 276 Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that the danse macabre urged Christians "not to forget the end of all earthly things". The danse macabre was sometimes enacted in European village pageants and court masques with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and this may be the origin of Halloween costume parties.
In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated Purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. State-sanctioned ceremonies associated with the intercession of saints and prayer for souls in Purgatory were abolished during the Elizabethan reform, though All Hallows' Day remained in the English liturgical calendar to "commemorate saints as godly human beings".Hutton, p. 372 For some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined: "souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits". Other Protestants believed in an intermediate state known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham).The Episcopal Church, its teaching and worship (Latta Griswold), E.S. Gorham, p. 110 In some localities, Catholics and Protestants continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead; but the Anglican Church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing.Aston, Margaret. Broken Idols of the English Reformation. Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp.475–477