Ring out the Bells for All Saints Day
But not for All Souls. In fact, no bells! Or cheese!
I could write about All Saints’ Day every year for the rest of my life and not exhaust the history, significance and relevance of this date in our calendar. In fact, I may end up doing that since I have become increasingly convinced of the importance of these festivals. And here we are looking forward to All Saints Day on 1stNovember.
All Saints’ Day is the last of nine Principal Feasts in the Church of England’s calendar, the first being Christmas Day, followed by The Epiphany; Candlemas (The Presentation of Christ in the Temple); Lady Day (The Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary); Easter Day; Ascension Day; Pentecost (Whit Sunday); Trinity Sunday and All Saints’ Day.
All Saints’ Day has been known as Hallowtide, or All Hallowmas. Hagla is the Old English word for ‘saint’, derived from the word Halig meaning ‘holy’, hence our word ‘hagiography’, a biography of a saint. By the later Middle Ages, halga had become halwe or halow. And so ‘All Hallowmas’ was a day of remembrance and celebration of the dead, in particular martyrs.
This is derived from the feast day instituted by Pope Boniface IV in 609. Given the Pantheon in Rome, he turned it into a church, dedicating it to the Blessed Virgin and all the unnamed martyrs who had died unrecorded and uncelebrated on 13th May. This celebration seems to have been moved to the present date by Pope Gregory III (731–741), who dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s, Rome, on November 1 in honour of all saints. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “In 800 All Saints’ Day was kept by Alcuin on November 1, and it also appeared in a 9th-century English calendar on that day. In 837 Pope Gregory IV ordered its general observance.”
What about the Pagans?
The idea that the date of All Hallows, or the preceding day, All Hallows Eve, somehow overlaps with the preceding Pagan festival called Samhain doesn’t really add up. Samhain itself, from the scant evidence we have, is more to do with the last throes of the harvest and the preparations for the coming winter. Furthermore, according to Eleanor Parker in Winters in the World:
“the eve of All Saints’ Day seems never to have been an important part of the Anglo-Saxon or later English Hallowtide, at least not in the form we understand it today, as the time for encountering ghosts or spirits.”
England was, nonetheless, awash with all kinds of superstitions and beliefs that would be challenged in the sixteenth century when the Reformers took hold of the church. Parker goes on:
“All Saints Day, however, reflected a profound devotion to the Saints… the helpful and familiar dead, always only a prayer away, ready to rush to the aid of the living. Unlike the spirits of the modern version of Halloween, they were not to be feared or avoided, unless one had done something to offend them: they possessed the power that could be awe-inspiring, but they only ever worked for the forces of good. Mediaeval Christians were constantly speaking to the dead, appealing for their help and coming close to them in their relics. To believe in the saints was to be part of a vast community, a fellowship that encompassed the living and the dead in one.”
All Hallows Eve was not needed as a day on which to remember the spirits of the dead and give your sister a nasty fright. That was already built into All Hallows itself. This ran into 2nd November, All Souls Day, an idea which came from the monastery at Cluny in the 10th Century and was a remembrance for all Christians who had died. Church bells were rung on the night of All Hallows Day into the morning of All Souls Day. Old Parish Life records various payments made to bellringers for their trouble including:
“a che[e]se for ye ringers at Halowmes night”
at St Mary’s, North Elmham in Norfolk.
Bishop Steals Cheese
That cheese was purchased (and eaten) in 1549. Twenty years later, however, the Bishop of Norwich ordered that:
“upon All Saintes Day and other like times, ther be no ringing of belles after evening prayer, or any other superstitious ceremony used, to the maintenaunce of poperie, or praying for the dead…”
Moreover, All Souls Day (on 2nd November) was struck out of the Church of England calendar entirely. (It has subsequently crept back into the calendar as a Lesser Festival as known as “The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed”.)
But the ruling of the Bishop of Norwich in 1569, however, looks like the cold-hearted Bible-bashers are ruining everyone’s fun and literally taking away their cheese. Why not let people ring the bells and commune with their relatives?
Here’s why: it undermines the rest of the church calendar, which is centred on Christ, who is conceived on Lady Day, born on Christmas Day, worshipped by kings on Epiphany, presented to the Temple on Candlemas, crucified on Good Friday, raised to life on Easter Day and risen back up to heaven on Ascension Day. And we look forward to his return during Advent.
Gospel Rediscovered
This is the gospel that the Reformers rediscovered. It had been there all along, but had been added to, weighed down, obfuscated and obscured. The people of England needed to know that they don’t need an intercessor or intermediary before the throne of God. They have Jesus Christ, the great high priest. They don’t need a dead relative to help them out on a tough day. They don’t even need to summon angels. In fact, they should not. They have something better: God’s Holy Spirit in their hearts.
I’ll be honest. I don’t quite know exactly what happens to people when they die and where they go. The Bible suggests it is literally down into the earth. What is certain is that:
it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. (Hebrews 9:27).
But we also know that Christ is not just sufficient for salvation, but supreme. He is so resplendent that we can scarcely take it in. So we make inferior shadows and copies of the transcendent realities, like children scrolling through pictures of trees on a phone when they are standing among the ancient oaks of England.
The fact is that all the saints, especially those who poured themselves out in obedience to Christ in martyrdom, would much rather we did not honour them, but the king they serve, the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.
Let’s unmuffle the bells, and ring them for that!
Next Friday, I’ll be writing about Martinmas, how we’re doing Christmas ALL WRONG, and launching my Christmas book deal!
Come Back, Guy Fawkes?
How do you explain Guy Fawkes and burning effigies of the Pope to an American? And how has Halloween grown to take it over in the UK? I had words about this with Barry Cooper four years ago in an episode I’ve reposted and renamed ‘The Rest is Guy Fawkes’. Here’s how we got on:
I see your point about keeping the calendar Christ-centred. Still, I much prefer the idea of remembering that we are ‘part of a vast community, a fellowship that encompassed the living and the dead’, to sprinkling plastic skeletons and fake spider webs in the front yard.
The sinners had their turn last night; now it's the saints' turn.