Hallowtide

A HISTORY OF THE HALLOWTIDE

Death Makes a Holiday

Introduction: Our Night of Fright

Ancient calendars, both Roman and Christian, run rife with holidays for every time and taste, encouraging the faithful to lead a life of constant remembrance, reverence, and celebration.  Alas, as Western Civilization has turned from ecstasy to efficiency, the vast majority of our holidays have withered and passed from memory; even Holy Mother Church struggles to keep the people enthused for anything beyond Christmas and Easter!

Yet there stands on the calendar one glorious exception to this otherwise dreary trend: Halloween!  Far from withering, Halloween seems to be the one holiday upon which everyone in American society can agree, and its popularity seems to grow continually.  Today American Halloween traditions are being enthusiastically imported to Europe, Latin America, and even Japan!  Few, however, know the history of Halloween, or even that it is but the beginning of the three-day medieval festival known as Hallowtide.

Make no mistake: though often misconstrued and maligned, Halloween has ever been a child of the Church.  Let us explore the history of this most misunderstood of Christian holy days, ever recalling that the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it!

Part I:  Presumed Pagan Precursors

In 1973, Norman Mailer coined the term “factoid” to indicate a widely-accepted but spurious fact, taken as truth simply because it has been repeated so often. One would be hard-pressed to find a more eminent example of a factoid than the supposed origins of Halloween.

We are told by history books, news programs, and popular lore alike that Halloween dates back to the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain (confusingly pronounced SOW-win), when the veil between the living and the dead was stretched to its most diaphanous. Ghosts, along with goblins and devils, could return to haunt the living that night, and so pagans would dress in costume to frighten the spooks away, and pile high the bonfires in order to call back the sun. Sweet treats, we are told, were left to mollify the hungry dead, and so our Halloween traditions date back thousands of years to appease lost souls who may yet wander the earth.

It’s a wonderful story, ancient and spooky and quite compelling. It makes for some wonderful movies. Unfortunately it’s also completely false. Nearly all our modern Halloween traditions originated in just the last few centuries, and Samhain, far from being a devilish day of the dead as twitchy fundamentalists would claim, was nothing more than the beginning of Celtic winter. We have no records of its celebration before the Tenth Century, long after Ireland had been Christianized, and there is no mention at all of spirits returning from the dead.

The Gaelic origins of Halloween are nothing more than factoids—falsehoods repeated so often that they have been accepted in the mainstream as true. Let us remember this the next time we see a Halloween special on the History Channel.

Part II: The Honored Dead

If indeed there are any pagan origins to Halloween, we must look not to the great Gaels of Ireland but to the denizens of ancient Rome, who would perform annual exorcisms on May 9^th, 11^th, and 13^th according to the Julian calendar. The purpose of these May rituals was to drive out the lemures, or malevolent ghosts, by banging pots and pans throughout the household at night, propitiating hungry spirits with beans, and performing religious rites to defend the living from the dead. (Such exorcisms rendered the entire month of May unlucky, especially for weddings.) The Vestal Virgins would prepare a sacred flour cake from the first ears of wheat at this time—a custom that seems to presage both Lammas Day and, as we shall see, soul cakes.

As Rome Christianized, however, a new attitude towards the dead became prevalent. Due to their strong belief in the Resurrection of all flesh, Christians honored their dearly departed both as sleeping on earth (the veneration of primary relics, i.e. corpses) and as living on spiritually in the beatific vision of Heaven (as God’s saints). Death was not to be feared for it had not the final say. Those who died in faith would not return as hungry ghosts to haunt the living, but would pray in the direct presence of God for those of us still struggling through our pilgrimage on earth. God might even give His saints special dispensation to intervene in the lives of their devotees.

As a result of this far more optimistic outlook on the afterlife—as compared, say, to Homer’s gibbering ghosts—saints were honored from the earliest days of the Church, both in uplifted prayers for intercession and in the distribution and reverencing of relics. The Holy Family, the Apostles, and the early martyrs and wonderworkers of the Christian faith were celebrated on individual saints’ days, yet these canonized “capital-S” Saints represented, one hoped, but a small sampling of the denizens of Heaven. Thus, all saints not given their own specific festival were celebrated collectively.

This “all saints” day may have been observed on May 13^th, the climax of the Lemuralia, as early as the Fourth Century A.D., but that date did not become set in stone until Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Roman Pantheon (that old pagan temple to “all gods”) to the Blessed Virgin Mary and All Martyrs on May 13^th, A.D. 609. Most interpreters understand this as a Christian refutation or reclaiming of the Lemuralia for Christ.

Part III: The Hallowtide

In the Eighth Century A.D., Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to the relics “of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world.” From this point onward, the Western Church would recognize All Saints’, or Hallowmas, on November 1^st, the date of the chapel’s dedication, rather than May 13^th. Particularly solemn holy days on the Church calendar are preceded by a vigil on the evening before. Thus, as November 1^st became All Hallows, October 31^st became All Hallows Eve—Hallowe’en.

All well and good for the saints in Heaven, but what of those poor departed souls still being purified for entry into the beatific vision? Prayer for the dead is a well-attested tradition in both Judaism and Christianity, and in the Western Church such prayers are believed to aid a soul in purgation by hurrying them to perfect unity with God. Extended periods of prayer for the dead were recognized during different periods in different regions.

Benedictines in Spain prayed for the dead for the week following Pentecost in the 7^th Century. Epiphany was popular for this in the 9^th Century. 10^th Century Germany prayed for the dead on October 1^st, while 11^th Century Milan preferred October 16^th. It was St. Odilo of Cluny, however, who insisted in the 11^th Century that all Benedictine monasteries dependent on Cluny pray for the dead on November 2^nd, the day after All Saints’, and it was this custom which won out to become the Western Church’s standard. Today November 2^nd is the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, better known as All Souls’ Day.

This three day festival—Halloween, All Saints’, and All Souls’—became collectively the Hallowtide.  No longer a time of fear, the Church took our natural autumnal fascination with death and focused it to orthodox ends: a time to celebrate the Church Triumphant (in Heaven) and Church Expectant (in Purgatory).

Prayers for the dead in Purgatory dominated much of All Souls’ Day, and so on the evening of All Souls’—i.e., All Saints’ Day—beggars and children would often go door-to-door, asking for “soul cakes” of oatmeal and molasses.  In exchange for such sweet treats, the needy would say prayers for the donor’s dead, until the cakes themselves came to represent souls fleeing from purgation into the beatific vision of union with God in Heaven.  While the tradition of young people “gone a-souling” seems an obvious precursor to our modern trick-or-treat, we shall see that the connection may not be as linear as one might think.

Part IV:  Ecclesia Semper Reformanda

When the Reformation and Counter-Reformation rolled through the Church, they left no stone unturned, including Halloween.  Luther, having little use for Purgatory, dismissed All Souls’ and expanded All Saints’ to honor every faithful Christian.  Calvinists had little use for any of the dead—who, like the living, were predestined from eternity—and so did away with the Hallowtide altogether.  The explosive growth of the Spanish Empire, however, found fertile ground for Hallowtide traditions amongst Native American cultures.  All Saints’ and All Souls’ would become Latin America’s Dias de los Muertos.

Still, old habits die hard.  Lutheranism’s Reformation Day falls on October 31^st specifically because of the medieval popularity that the Hallowtide enjoyed. Luther posted his 95 Theses on All Hallows’ Eve precisely because he knew that the Castle Church in Wittenberg would be packed with worshippers on All Saints’ Day.

The Puritans of Cromwell’s England, with their harsh Calvinism, officially forbade the Hallowtide (and for that matter, Christmas), but were able to bring it in the back door when Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic, attempted to blow up Parliament on November 5^th, 1605.  Fawkes was hung, drawn and quartered, and the anniversary of his foiled plot became immortalized as Guy Fawkes’ Day:

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,

The gunpowder treason and plot

I see no reason why the gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot!

If Hallowtide was too Catholic for Cromwell’s ilk, Guy Fawkes’ Day was acceptable precisely because of its anti-Catholicism.  Straw effigies of Fawkes were dressed up in increasingly ridiculous costumes, eventually mirroring the commedia de’llarte, and burned.  Bonfires, pageantry and begging “a penny for the Guy” all returned in full force.  Much of our modern Halloween pageantry stems from Guy Fawkes’ Day.

As English Calvinism gave way to Anglicanism and Anglo-Catholicism, Halloween once again took hold as a time for adult gatherings and formal parties.  Divination based on apples and roasting nuts sought to unveil future spouses and household deaths, but these were clearly more party games than paganism.  Crops left unharvested were thrown in thunderous storm against front doors.  Both pranks and fortunetelling often revolved around kale stalks, which could be packed with fibers and stuck through a keyhole to produce a frightening jet of flame!

At this time, the term jack-‘o-lantern was used interchangeably with will-‘o-wisp, referring to the swamp gas phenomenon of “fools’ fire” and legends of a man so nasty that he was barred from both Heaven and Hell—though the Devil gave to him an infernal coal with which to light his wandering way.  Jack is said to have carved a turnip into a lantern for his coal, though alas, he lacked the New World pumpkin.  As the Victorian era dawned, Halloween was held up as a rather sanitized holiday, though it got a much-needed shot in the arm from the Spiritualist movement of the 19^th Century.

Part V:  A Uniquely American Celebration

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Pilgrims of Plymouth and Puritans of Boston had no Hallowtide traditions of their own.  Neither, for that matter, did the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam and of Washington Irving’s delightful Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Still, Calvinist paranoia over witchcraft (as witnessed in the Salem Witch Trials and related craze throughout New England) along with ancient Netherlands legends contributed greatly to later American Halloween iconography. Our modern image of the witch is based upon the drab garb of urban English Puritans; their country cousins were far more colorful.

The South, however, with its large Irish and Scottish populations and its Episcopalian/Anglo-Catholic elite, kept Halloween alive as a time for home parties and divination games.  (Such was common practice for Christmas as well: “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire,” and all that.)  But what brought Halloween to the North—and into its own as a truly American celebration—was wave after wave of Irish Catholic immigration to the New World during the devastating Potato Famine of the 19^th Century.

Two million Irish came ashore on the East Coast, having survived the harrowing transatlantic “coffin ships,” and they brought with them their Hallowtide tales of life and death.  Carved turnips became carved pumpkins, and the modern jack-‘o-lantern was born!  Bewildered New England Protestants initially looked to Irish Halloween customs as pagan or Catholic, which to Puritan eyes seemed largely the same thing. (This may well be the origin of those persistent “Celtic Halloween” factoids.) Yet in time, Americans, aping the British Empire, tried to adopt Halloween by whitewashing much of the Hallowtide’s edgier side. This was soon to change.

Part VI: Modern Mischief

With the dawn of the 20^th Century, Hallowtide celebrations turned from home parties to focus exclusively on children.  Kids were turned out into the street en masse and unsupervised, mimicking medieval celebrations of societal inversion such as Midsummer’s Eve or the Feasts of Fools.  For one night out of the year, children were permitted to take a measure of revenge against the adult world, as pranks and vandalism came to the fore.

When Halloween mischief became too much for parents to stomach, Anoka, Minnesota led the way to reform with America’s first major civic Halloween party in 1920.  Halloween had moved from the Victorian house to the unsupervised street, and was now being relocated once again to town hall.  This was an attempt to tame Halloween.

While costumes had come to be associated with Hallowtide around 1900 or so, truly elaborate disguises and trick-or-treating were not yet traditions particular to Halloween.  In fact, costuming was much more closely associated with Thanksgiving—a tradition continued by the Mummers’ Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Child beggars known as “ragamuffins,” mimicking Guy Fawkes rituals, went trick-or-treating door to door, extorting candies under threat of prankster vandalism.  It was, in effect, a form of class warfare.  Alas, come the Great Depression of 1932, Thanksgiving extravagance was officially done away with—but the ragamuffins, unwilling to be denied, switched to the far less regulated holiday of Halloween!  Thus modern trick-or-treating came into its own.

With the dawn of World War II, Halloween found itself cancelled as well, at least for the duration of hostilities.  It came roaring back, however, with the postwar Baby Boom, which was the birth of our modern Halloween craze, complete with horror films.

But the heady days of the 1950s gave way to the societal upheavals of the 1960s and the escalating violence of the 1970s and 80s.  Halloween pranks expanded to urban arson, with disaffected adolescents torching enormous numbers of condemned buildings.  In fact, October 30^th, the night before Halloween, became so infamous for its infernos that newspapers christened it “Devil’s Night.”  Down and up and down again!

Neopagans from the 60s claimed Halloween as their own, giving it a New Age (and fallacious) back story, while reports of poisoned or booby-trapped Halloween candy fueled social anxiety and mistrust of neighbors.  In truth, no American child has ever been poisoned or injured by a neighbor’s or stranger’s candy on Halloween; the only kids ever murdered in this manner were killed by parents and close family members.  America had reached the point where we no longer feared otherworldly spirits, only to tremble at the very human face next door.

But night gives way to day, and in the 1980s and 90s, the children of the 50s and 60s grew up, bringing with them all their fond childhood memories of the Hallowtide.  Adult parties sprouted up, allowing both children and parents to express their wild sides.  Cross dressing exploded in San Francisco, sexual liberation peaked at the Playboy Mansion’s annual Halloween party, and taboos of every sort were allowed a ritualized release on this single day of the year.  House parties, civic parties, children’s parties, and the traditions from every age all returned to one extent or another.  Haunted Houses aspired to mimic Disney’s Haunted Mansion, and even Evangelical Hell Houses got in on the act.

Conclusion: Resurrection Reclaimed

Today, Halloween is more popular than ever, though it largely has been removed from any religious roots, pagan or Christian.  But even as Neopagans try to claim it for themselves, an influx of Latin American immigration has brought the Dias de los Muertos—All Saints’ and All Souls’—back to the American consciousness.  All Souls’ in particular, with its “bread of the dead” and wacky Calaveras, proves a powerful culture.

The Hallowtide has never left the Christian calendar, even if it has drifted from the minds of the faithful.  The Church still takes these days to celebrate our dead, no longer with fear, but with Christian hope, faith and love.  It is a time to recall, with defiance and relief, that all the things which used to terrorize us—ghosts and ghoulies, witches and will-‘o-wisps, death, the Devil and Hell itself—have been conquered in Christ, and we are liberated from their ancient grip.

Hallowtide, for the Church, is a time to dance in the face of death, and thereby know what it is to truly be alive.  Now what could be more Christian than that?