Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve, is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of Western Christianity's 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), Christian 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 is 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 Christian Church. Other scholars 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, and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Popular Halloween activities 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.
Hallow derives from Middle English halowen, from Old English hālig which means holy; it 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): even is the Scots term for 'eve' or 'evening', and is contracted to e'en or een; so (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Halloween. A term equivalent to 'All Hallows Eve' as attested in Old English. Thus, the name originates in Christianity, and means "Saints' eve(ning)".
Christian origins and historical customs
'Halloween' comes from All Hallows' Eve, being the night before All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day), which is followed by All Souls' Day on 2 November. These three days are a part of Allhallowtide, a time when Western Christians honour all Christian martyrs and saints, as well as pray for departed souls. Halloween is influenced by Christian beliefs and practices surrounding these holy days. Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter have vigils that begin the night before, as does All Hallows.
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 that date was endorsed by Pope Boniface IV in 609, when he re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to 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. Some folklorists also suggest the ancient Roman festival of Parentalia (including Feralia) influenced All Saints' and All Souls' days. Parentalia involved a commemorative meal at the graves of relatives, during which food and drink were offered to the dead. Despite opposition from Church leaders, Christian Romans continued this custom, extending it to the saints and martyrs.
There is evidence that by 800, churches in Ireland and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on 1 November. In 835, the Frankish Empire officially adopted 1 November as the date of All Saints' Day, which was endorsed by Pope Gregory IV. 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. The date was influenced by Celtic or Germanic idea traditions commemorating the dead at the beginning of winter. 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 summers.
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', and by the end of the century, both had become important holy days in Western Christianity. On All Souls' Day, people prayed for the dead and church bells were rung for souls in Purgatory. It was also customary for criers dressed in black to walk the streets "ringing a mournful bell and calling on all people to remember the poor souls in purgatory".
The All Souls' Day custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. Called "souling", the custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Southern Germany and Austria. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door to door on All Souls' Day, collecting soul cakes in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat, being laid on graves, or the "soulers" would act as their representatives. It has been suggested that this replaced the pre-Christian custom of offering food to the dead. As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating that they were baked as alms. In parts of the British Isles, "soulers" carried lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips, which might have originally represented souls in purgatory; 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". According to Lesley Bannatyne, in the Middle Ages, churches in Europe that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints on All Hallows' Day let parishioners dress up as saints instead. Bannatyne opines that this "resembled the pagan custom of parading ghosts to the town limits". Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today. Many Christians in mainland Europe believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre; compositions have celebrated this belief. It has been suggested as an origin of Halloween costumes. Often depicted in church decoration, the danse macabre urged Christians "not to forget the end of all earthly things". According to an article in Christianity Today, the danse macabre was sometimes enacted in European village pageants and court masques with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society".
In Britain, a number of these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated Purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the Reformed (Calvinist) doctrine of predestination held by the Anglican Church. 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 Anglican liturgical calendar to commemorate saints as outstanding Christians rather than "semi-divine intercessors". For Protestants, the theology of Allhallowtide 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". In parts of England, some Protestants, as well as Catholics, continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead; but the Anglican Church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing. Professor of medieval archaeology Mark Donnelly and historian Daniel Diehl write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth".