Join the LIST to be eligible for tickets & news/updates. Check SPAM or promo folder - tix released to all on list, email us if probs
Nov. 2nd's All Souls Day was added to Allhallowtide (Hallowtide for short) triduum (say it: TRIH-doo-um, a three day religious festival) in the late 10th (900s), early 11th (1000s), and 12th (1100s) Centuries CE gradually over time to assist in afterlife purification of souls in Purgatory (an implied third place of cleansing after death between heaven and hell) and to support the Medieval poor by Christian charity.
When Christianity spread across Celtic lands, it didn’t wipe Samhain away—it absorbed it.
Between the 8th and 11th centuries, the Church layered Allhallowtide on top of Samhain:
- October 31 – All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween)
- November 1 – All Saints’ Day (All Hallows)
- November 2 – All Souls’ Day
This triduum shifted the focus from the fae, departed spirits, and ancestors to official saints and purgatory-bound souls.
And so emerged souling—a new tradition where children or the poor (and most often poor children) would go door to door, offering prayers for the dead in exchange for treats, especially soul cakes👈 (spiced buns marked with a cross).
Each cake was believed to save one soul from purgatory.
They sang:
“A soul! A soul! A soul cake!
Please good missus, a soul cake!
One for Peter, two for Paul, three for Him who saved us all.”
Souling was Christian.
'Guising was pre-Christian.
But the costume endured.
Only now it merely wore a rosary.
In the medieval period, soulers still wore soot-faces and animals masks to gather alms (aid of coin, nuts, and cakes for support) for the poor.
But the “trick" in “trick-or-treating," would evolve from souling as Catholic youth began to pull pranks on miserly people who would not answer the door or would not donate to the poor. That would lead to Mischief Night and Halloween parties. Read on to find out how.
Samhain (say it: SOW-in) customs became part of Hallowmas, the night before the three days (triduum, say it: TRIH-doo-um) called Allhallowtide (Hallowtide for short). The triduum included:
October 31st, All Hallows Eve (All hallowed evening, Hallowed evening, Halloweven, Hallowe'en, Halloween)
November 1st, All Saints Day (also called All Hallows Day or Hallowmas), and November 2nd, All Souls Day (called Día de los Muertos in Latin America).
On the night before All Saints Day, people went around collecting alms (money or food) for the poor. This is why it was called All Hallows Eve.
Allhallowtide or the three day festival was born from these customs.
A long time ago, there were too many saints and martyrs (people who died for their faith or did miracles) to give each one a separate feast day. So, in 835 CE, Pope Gregory IV started All Saints Day (also called All Hallows Day or Hallowmas) to honor all of them together.
He moved it from May 1st (which was also the Celtic festival called Beltaine, see Celtic Cosmology) to November 1st (right after Samhain). This made it easier to feed the big crowds who came to Rome for the festival. It also helped convert the Celts in Western Europe and the British Isles to Christianity by mixing their old customs with the new Christian ones.
The “Dance of Death" depicted in medieval art. This art was a reminder that no one lives forever, and that we should remember our death and live in a way that makes us unafraid to die and ready to meet Christ our Judge. Credit: Kyra C Kramer.com
A doctrine (say it: DOCK-trin) is a formally stated belief of a church or religion that all followers must or should believe.
The Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine of Purgatory (a place or state where souls are cleaned before going to Heaven) was defined at three big meetings called councils: the Council of Lyon (1274 CE/AD), Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–45 CE/AD), and Council of Trent (1545–63 CE/AD).
In these meetings, they used scripture from a book called 2 Maccabees 12:42–45. This book is part of the Catholic Bible's apocrypha (say it: uh-POCK-ruh-fuh; special books that Protestants and Jews do not recognize or include in their Bibles). It suggested that prayers and alms (money or food given to the poor) for people who had already died could help redeem (save) them, even if they had not been fully forgiven before they died.
Protestants (Christians who broke away from the Catholic Church) thought this idea was completely wrong. They believed that only an individual’s faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and God’s grace (God’s free gift of love and forgiveness) could save anyone—that one could be saved through faith alone in God's grace, and no amount of prayer or good works could earn one heaven.
This single difference of opinion was so serious that it eventually led to about 70 million Christians killing other Christians in the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions, European Wars on Religion, and European and American Witch Crazes.
Of course, these doctrinal differences (different church beliefs) led to many major events in Christian history. These include:
The Protestant Reformation (when Christians broke away from the Catholic Church),
The Catholic Counter-Reformation (when the Catholic Church tried to stop or respond to those changes),
The Spanish, French, and Roman/Italian Inquisitions (church courts used to question or punish people accused of breaking church rules),
The publication of the Malleus Maleficarum (say it: MAL-ee-us MAL-uh-FICK-uh-rum), also known as The Witch Hammer, a witch-hunting guidebook printed in 1487 CE/AD led to centuries of witch hunts, false accusations against church or neighborhood enemies, witch trials, and burnings at the stake across Europe.
All these conflicts helped spark the European Wars of Religion, where an estimated 70 million Christians (that's 10 times as many people perished in the genocide of the Hebrew people called the Holocaust during World War II!) perished at the hands of other Christians between the late 1400s (15th century CE/AD) and early 1700s (18th century).
Ironically, these violent events helped lead to ideas like freedom of conscience (freedom to believe what your heart says is right), freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. America’s founding fathers insisted on these freedoms in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution (called the framers) wrote a lot about how these freedoms were necessary antecedents (say it: AN-teh-SEE-dents — things that must come first) for republican government (government where people choose leaders, and the people themselves govern indirectly by so doing), the rule of law, and even for freedom itself to exist. This happened during the Age of Political Revolutions, beginning with the American Revolution in the late 1700s through the 1800s and every new republican democracy copied these ideas as countries gained their independence and became ruled by democracy.
Back in the Catholic Church, the earlier church councils (official meetings of church leaders) said that Purgatory was also hinted at in the New Testament:
In Matthew 12:31–32, Jesus talks about “forgiveness in this age and the age to come,”
In 1 Peter 1:6–7, Peter speaks of a “trial of faith,”
In 1 Corinthians 3:13–15, Paul describes a “cleansing fire.”
The Catholic Church used these scriptures to build the doctrine of the seven sacraments — special church rituals believed to help people reach Heaven. These are:
Baptism
Confirmation
Communion
Confession
Anointing of the Sick (also called Last Rites)
Marriage
Holy Orders (service to the church)
According to the Church, receiving these sacraments puts a person in a state of grace (clean from sin), allowing the soul to go straight to Heaven without needing purification in Purgatory.
Martin Luther, the Catholic monk who began the Protestant Reformation, kept only three of these sacraments: confession, communion, and baptism. He rejected the idea of Purgatory.
This is also why Luther strongly objected to the sale of indulgences (paying money to reduce or remove the punishment for sins, either on Earth or in Purgatory). He felt this was wrong. He wrote his 95 Theses (say it: THEE-sees — 95 complaints or claims), including this problem, and posted them publicly.
That moment started the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation (and the aforementioned violent religious conflicts) — and led to later events like the Age of Reason (also called the Enlightenment) and the Scientific Revolution.
Ludovico Carracci (1555–1619): An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory (1610) Credit: Wikimedia: Pinacoteca Vaticana Web Gallery
The Bishop of the most important monastery (a religious community where monks live and pray) in Western Europe, St. Odilo, who was the Bishop (church leader) of Cluny (a famous monastery in France), wanted a special day to pray for all the people who had died that year, especially the poor.
To explain why he wanted this day on November 2nd (right after All Hallows Day or All Saints Day on November 1st), Odilo told a story. He said a pilgrim (a traveler on a religious journey) got shipwrecked and was stuck living in a cave. While there, the pilgrim heard scary visions: screaming, voices, and devils torturing souls in the flames of Purgatory (a place or state where souls are purified or cleaned before going to Heaven).
The pilgrim remembered from 2 Maccabees (a book in the Catholic Bible’s apocrypha [say it: uh-POCK-ruh-fuh; extra books not used by Protestants or Jews]) that prayers and gifts for the poor could help free these souls. When he was finally rescued, he went straight to Odilo and asked, "Why isn’t there a special day to pray for the dead each year?" Odilo said yes right away and started the new day.
This new practice started at Odilo’s monastery in Cluny, France, in the late 10th century (the 900s). It was first copied by the Belgian Diocese of Liège (a church area led by a bishop) in 1008 CE/AD. By the 1200s (13th century), it had spread all over the Holy Roman Empire (a big group of European kingdoms and lands under one Roman Catholic Christian emperor).
Now that there was a special day to pray for souls in Purgatory, people began giving alms (donations of food or money for the poor) on the night before All Saints Day.
They gave coins, nuts, apples, and simple soul cakes (small cakes made from flour and water, given to help souls in Purgatory, it was said each cake rescued a soul), and either the soulers or sometimes parish church in receiving large donations from wealthy people would distribute those alms to the poor on All Souls Day.
This practice was called souling. Catholic children and youth went door to door asking for soul cakes, apples, nuts, and coins for the poor. Over time, this tradition turned into what we know today as trick-or-treating.
Eventually, soulers (people who went door to door asking for food or money for the poor) began to warn or lightly threaten people who would not give alms (donations) on All Hallows Eve or who would not open their doors. They saw these people as miserly (say it: MY-zur-lee; meaning greedy and selfish). The soulers would say they might play a prank if the person didn’t give something to help the poor.
At first, these pranks were harmless jokes, but over the decades, they turned into not-so-harmless tricks and even some serious damage. There’s more about this on the next page in this section...
In Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, kids kept doing 'guising (say it: GUY-zing; dressing up in costumes). This meant dressing up on Samhain (say it: SOW-in), which was now called All Hallows Eve (the evening before All Hallows Day when door-to-door alms were collected). But because of their cultural memory of Samhain, they continued to dress up to confuse, scare away, or blend in with the ghosts and spirits they believed walked the earth that night.
And that's the practice that's been handed down to us.
During the Medieval Period, throughout Catholic Christendom, souling for alms was a Hallowtide tradition that would lead to historical trick-or-treating. Credit: Medieval Histories
Soulers would sing songs as they went door to door 'guising to collect alms. Here's one souling song's chorus (Credit: Roud 304 ; Ballad Index BGMG408 ; trad.):
“Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;
Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Them who made us all.
Soul! soul! for an apple or two;
If you’ve got no apples, pears will do.
Up with your kettle, and down with your pan;
Give me a good big one, and I’ll be gone.
An apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,
Is a very good thing to make us merry."
Another chorus that was sung sings (Credit: John Brand in his “Popular Antiquities” (1777) taken directly from the lips of “the merry pack, who sing from door to door, on the eve of All – Soul’s Day, in Cheshire ”):
“Soul day, soul day, Saul
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for Him who made us all.
Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,
Go down into the cellar, bring up what you please;
A glass of your wine, or a cup of your beer,
And we’ll never come souling till this time next year.
We are a pack of merry boys, all in a mind,
We are come a souling for what we can find,
Soul, soul, sole of my shoe,
If you have no apples, money will do;
Up with your kettle and down with your pan,
Give us an answer and let us be gone
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing that will make us all merry.
Thus, Celtic Pagan (Samhain), Roman Pagan (Pomonalia), and Roman (Irish) Catholic traditions blended in the British Isles in All Hallowed Evening's souling and guising on Snap Apple or Nutcrack Night, which their immigrants to the New World would bring with them in the 1830s-1860s during the Irish potato famine (1845-1852) in which roughly 4-6 million Irish emigrated to the United States.
🛑You're here:
Trick-or-Treating 👈
How Trick-or-Treating Evolved from Samhain 'Guising to Roman Catholic Souling
Continue ➡️
How Souling Evolved to Mischief & A Plan to Keep the Kids Out of Trouble or how the Trick Ended Up in the Treat