Halloween

(Originally posted 31 October 2021)

Halloween is a Scottish shortening of All-Hallow’s Eve, or more exactly its older form All-Hallow-Even. It is, of course, the day before All Saint’s Day, which falls on 1 November. Many people associate the Celtic, pagan festival of Samhain with Halloween, largely because it falls on the same day and because some of the elements of the modern practice of Halloween are similar to practices associated with the Celtic holiday. But the connection to the Celtic holiday is disputed. In the early Christian church the celebration of all saints was held in the spring, associated with Easter or Pentecost. Pope Gregory III changed the date to 1 November in c.731. Why Gregory III changed the date is unknown. Some contend it was to align the holiday with Samhain—it was a common practice for the Christian church to co-opt pagan festivals in this manner—but others contend that the date was chosen because that’s when Gregory dedicated an oratory to all saints in Old St. Peter’s Basilica.

References to All Saint’s Day go back to Old English. For example, here is a reference to it from Ælfric’s homily for the feast day, written in the closing years of the tenth century:

Halige lareowas ræddon þæt seo geleaffulle gelaþung þisne dæg eallum halgum to wurðmynte mærsie.

(Holy teachers have instructed that the faithful church celebrate this day to piously honor all saints.)

A decade or so later, Wulfstan, the Archbishop of York refers to the day before All Saint’s Day in a list of days when contributions to the church are due. All Saints Eve is one of the three days of the year when payments to keep the churches lighted are due:

Ærest sulhælmessan xv niht ofer eastran, geogoðe teoðunge be pentecosten, Romfeoh be Petres mæssan, eorðwæstma be ealra halgena mæssan, cyricsceat to Martinus mæssan, and leohtgesceotu þriwa on geare, ærest on easteræfen, and oðre siðe on candelmæsseæfen, þriddan siðe on ealra halgena mæsseæfen.

(First plow-alms 15 nights over Easter, tithe of the young beasts at Pentecost, Peter’s penny by St. Peter’s mass, crops by All-Saint’s mass, church-payment at St. Martin’s mass, and the light-payment three times a year, first at Easter-Eve, and the second time at Candlemas-Eve, and the third time at All-Saint’s-Mass-Eve.)

We get a reference to All Hallows’ Eve in the Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, found in the manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A.11, which was copied c.1325. The date is mentioned because Robert died on 31 October 1147:

Roberd erl of gloucestere · of wan we speke er ·
An alle halwe eue deide · þulke sulue ȝer ·
& in þe priorie of seint iame · at bristowe ibured was ·

(Robert, earl of Gloucester, of whom we speak here,
On All-Hallow’s Eve died, this same year,
And in the Priory of Saint James at Bristol was buried.)

John Shillingford, the mayor of Exeter, England, mentions the date in a letter of 2 November 1447, not a happy day for him either, evidently:

The morun tuysday al Halwyn yeven y receyved the answeris to oure articulis at Westminster of the whiche y sende yow a true copy, yn the whiche articulis as hit appereth they have spatte out the uttmyst and worste venym that they cowde seye or thynke by me.

(The Tuesday morning of All-Hallows’ Eve I received the answers to our articles at Westminster, of which I am sending you a true copy, in these articles as it appears they have spat out the utmost and worst venom that they could say or think about me.)

And we finally get the form Halloween in the late eighteenth century. From a poem by Robert Fergusson, published in 1773:

Foul sa me gif your bridal had na been
Nae langer bygane that sin Hallow-e’en,
I cou’d hae teil’d you but a warlock’s art,
That some daft lyghtlyin quean had stown your heart.

(The foul [fiend] said to me if your wedding had not been
No longer ago than since Halloween,
I could have told you by a warlock’s art,
That some daft scornful woman had stolen your heart.)

Based on the contexts of these early citations of the word’s use, it’s no wonder why 31 October developed a bad and spooky reputation.

Sources:

Ælfric. “Kalende Novembris Natale Omnium Sanctorum.” Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The First Series. Peter Clemoes, ed. Early English Text Society, S.S. 17, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997, 486.

Fergusson, Robert. “An Eclogue.” Poems. Edinburgh: Walter & Thomas Ruddiman, 1773, 86. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. al-halwe(n, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Hallow-e’en, n.; third edition, September 2012, s.v. All-Hallows, n.

Shillingford, John. “IV. Shillingford to his Fellows (2 November 1447). Letters and Papers of John Shillingford. Stuart A. Moore, ed. Camden Society. Westminster: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1871, 16. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wright, William Aldis, ed. Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, vol. 2 of 2. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode for the Stationary Office, 1887, lines 9536–38, 673. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wulfstan. Canons of Edgar. Roger Fowler, ed. Early English Text Society, O.S. 266. London: Oxford UP, 1972.

Photo credit: Carole Pasquier, 2004, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.