(Cover image(s) – © Pinterest / Sally Jackson)
For most, Halloween is a time for celebrating all things spooky and supernatural whilst dressing up in costumes like children once again and stuffing our mouths full of really sugary candies until our stomachs begged us to stop. For the Tudors and their ancestors, it was a vastly different affair; it was nothing like what we know it today, with candies, costumes and fun being swapped for rituals, prayers and even sacrifices at one point. Halloween has a rich, sometimes odd history in how it came from being a religious occasion to the fun holiday we love so passionately today. So, let us take you through the history of the holiday Halloween or All Hallows Eve as is its original name.
Ancient origins
Although the first ever recorded use of the word ‘Halloween’ was spoken in the 16th century, you might be surprised to know that the festival of Halloween was ‘celebrated’, to a certain extent, for thousands of years before the Tudors came to power. It was in fact the Celtics who are behind the origin of the spooky holiday of Halloween where people dress up as ghosts, witches, and psychotic murderers among many other things.
However, their version of Halloween was a little more… ritualistic than our modern take of fancy dress parties and watching classic 90s slasher horrors.
No, 2,000 years ago, Halloween was known as the Festival of Samhain by the Celts (pronounced sow-in for all those who pronounced it sam-hain). For those wondering what this festival symbolised, allow us to elaborate. Just like the Vikings had their yearly festivals at Uppsala and the Aztecs had their Quecholli festival at the end of the 14th month (per the Aztecan calendar), the Celts had their annual Festival of Samhain on the day before the first day of November (31st October) as the first day of November was essentially their New Year.
Unlike today where Halloween is just a day where we can celebrate the ‘existence’ of supernatural and paranormal creatures, this festival is more about expressing fear towards unwanted spirits. You see, as the festival was held on the 31st of October, this marked the ending of summer and the harvest (otherwise known as ‘Summer’s End’) and the beginning of the winter period which was associated (just as it still is today) with death and illness.
The Celts (as did many other ancient civilisations) believed that on this one night, the veil between the world of the living and the dead weakened and almost merged, which would allow (in their minds) the ghosts of the deceased to return to the land of the living. The very thought of this would have sent shivers down the spines of many as the ghosts of the dead were believed to have the ability to not just cause havoc by destroying crops or injuring mortals but the ability to possess a mortal and potentially become a monster on earth.
Therefore, the Celts devised the following rituals during this festival in order to prevent this; priests in Celtic culture were/are known as Druids who were responsible for the organisation of the festivities. From constructing massive bonfires to throwing the corpses of animal sacrifices or burning crops in tribute to the Gods, they were exceedingly important to this yearly event. Dressed in ceremonial robes crafted out of beautifully skinned animal fur, they were also said to read the fortunes of those who attended and warn anyone of any harm that might befall them and what sacrifices they should make to prevent this from happening.
Christian merging of ancient traditions
You would think that with Christianity beginning to rid the world of paganism they would see fit to remove all reminders and traditions of these festivities and introduce their own forms but no. There is clear evidence to the contrary as can be seen by the continuation of the Celtic tradition of the offering of the cleverly named Soul Cakes. In fact, by the 8th or 9th century, this tradition had been ‘made holy’ so to speak and sanctified by the Holy Roman Church.
Soul Cakes? What are these cakes stuffed with the souls of the dead? What kind of weirdo Halloween tradition is this, you might be asking yourself.
Well, I can promise you that this is nothing untoward, it’s just a clever name for a baked good, nothing more, nothing less.
Soul Cakes are small, rounded cakes usually filled with cinnamon, currants or saffron, depending on what recipe you site. You might assume that these baked goods are eaten as some odd way of warding off unwanted spirits, however, that is not what Soul Cakes are for. Varying opinions state that these cakes were either offered as condolences for the recently departed or were given away (previously by Druids but now by members of the Church) to protect people from evil spirits that might lead them astray from God’s holy path of righteousness. Though the meaning had been changed, the principle behind the tradition still remained the same which is quite interesting if you research how hard and cruel Christians were in eradicating pagan beliefs and traditions once Christianity began to spread over the lands.
Furthermore, the Christians continued with their redesigning of pagan festivals when Pope Boniface IV (lol, what a name for a holy man) established All Saint’s Day (originally Martyrs Day) which was to celebrate the deaths of holy priests or martyrs on the 13th May but this was later changed to All Saint’s Day and moved to 1st November by Pope Gregory III.
Interestingly, not much later, the Church also added All Souls’ Day (similar to Samhain) which was held on November 2nd and honouring the dead by hosting bonfires and people dressing up in their fanciest clothes in respect for the deceased. As the 8th and 9th centuries were still using what is known as Middle English, All Saint’s Day was derived from ‘alholowmesse’ which sounds like All Hallows Eve which was the night before—leading us to what we now call Halloween, but if you’re a true believer like me, you’ll still call it All Hallows Eve.
This brings us to the Tudors!
The Tudor Period
Ah, we’re finally here. The Tudor period is the main reason we’re all here reading this post and now, the wait is over.
Religion, as you may know, was a very important aspect of daily Tudor life, from the richest of society (the King, a Duke or even a Lady) to the poorest of them all (a common beggar, a thief, a widow left to scrape enough money to survive day to day) valued religion almost above all else. God was responsible for what happened to us in life; if you caught the sweating sickness or found yourself deprived of all your money, it was because you had angered God and he was now punishing you for it, or if you had found yourself with child after years of desperately trying or some minor fortune had come your way then God was rewarding you for your piety and dedication to the Christian faith.
Now, there are different forms of how Halloween was celebrated by the Tudors due to the change in religion following Henry VIII’s break from Rome and the Catholic Church in the Reformation. So, to make it easier for you, I’m going to split it into two sections; pre-reformation and post-reformation.
Pre-Reformation Tudor Traditions
In the pre-Reformation period in England, the Catholic Church believed very much in the aspects of astrology and magic, magic was responsible for all the evil that befall believers and astrology was used to consult the stars and what they could tell us about our future—as was the custom to attend mass and then after consult astrologers as Henry VIII had done many times during both his marriages to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.
During this period, All Hallows Eve was on the 31st which was then followed by All Saints’ Day on the 1st of November and All Souls’ Day on the 2nd. On these days, Christians were to pray continuously for their souls and for those who had passed, the tradition of Soul Cakes was upheld and some even gave away monetary goods to the church as a means of cleansing their souls to prevent them from joining other souls who were believed to be trapped in purgatory for their sinful and unbelieving ways. It was a catholic belief that if you atoned for your sins before you died and if others continued to pray for you once you passed, you could skip being sent to purgatory altogether or it would speed up your journey to Heaven, should you find yourself in purgatory.
Just a quick fact—did you know that the modern Halloween tradition of bobbing for apples might have originated around the Tudor period?
Whilst it’s not been conclusively proven, it is believed that the tradition of people bobbing for apples originated from the Tudor era where young people would ‘bob’ for apples stuck on a hanging beam with a lit candle on the other end and their hands tied behind their backs. But there has been some evidence from a 19th-century book that included a letter from 1728 making note of this tradition by a lord requesting apples for this festivity. Whether the Tudors are to thank for this tradition or their descendants, we may never know.
Post-Reformation Tudor Traditions
Sadly, everything that we just listed there as Tudor traditions for celebrating Halloween were all put to an end by Henry VIII’s decision to break from the Catholic Church and Rome, making England officially a Protestant country. As a result of this, a lot of the traditions of the Catholic faith were stripped away as Protestants did not believe that faith should be displayed in expensive items or decorations but more in modest ways and worshipped purely through attending Church. Henry’s right-hand man Thomas Cromwell was the leading force in stripping England of its Catholic belongings as he believed that the Catholic faith was all a bunch of ‘silly superstition’ and robbing people of their money for the promise of escaping purgatory. Therefore, under his command, statues of beloved saints were removed, murals destroyed, and shrines pillaged, he even reduced how long feasting or fasting could last so that more work could be done during the summer seasons. He made it brutal on the Catholics and Henry VIII (as well as Elizabeth I who was also Protestant) stopped the festivities of All Soul’s Day, making it illegal to practice anything of that nature.
Halloween, for a great length of time under Protestant rule, was hardly celebrated at all and it is believed it wasn’t until the late 18th and 19th centuries that some of our more modern traditions for Halloween came into play so it’s quite interesting to see how the Protestant religion impacted how we celebrated Halloween.
Why is Halloween NOT represented in any books/films/television material for the Tudors?
A big reason why you are unlikely to find any representation of Tudor Halloween in any books, movies or television series is simply because of the lack of material; writers want to make sure that if they are portraying a religious or historical event that they have a lot of material to go by to make sure that it is as accurate as possible and Tudor Halloween simply does not have enough (or any) material to make this a reality. Another reason might be that other religious events might be more important, more well-researched or simply have a connection to what story the writer is trying to tell, there is no point adding a scene about Tudor Halloween if there is simply no need for it. But this does not mean that it cannot be added to a story that you might write or perhaps even a screenplay for a movie, you just have to be careful with how you include it and if like me, you find it difficult to get your hands on any material about Tudor Halloween, I would recommend maybe focusing on other events such as Christmas—which we will be exploring later on in the year!
Well, I hope that this article was as fun and entertaining for you to read as it was for me to write and that you come back next time for another article informing you of facts you might not have known! Until then…
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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