The Medieval Imagination of All Hallows: Ghosts, Relics, and Purgatory

The Medieval Imagination of All Hallows: Ghosts, Relics, and Purgatory

When I think of Halloween in the Middle Ages, I picture a world where the veil was not only thin but crowded. The faithful heard bells for the dead, the air smelled of candle wax and incense, and the dark corners of the churchyard stirred with whispers. This was the era when Halloween became layered with theology, folklore, and fear — saints and spirits walking side by side.

1. Ghosts and Purgatory

Medieval belief was shaped by the rise of purgatory as a doctrine. By the 12th century, the idea that souls lingered in an intermediate place before heaven had become central. All Souls’ Day (November 2) was set aside for prayers and Masses for these souls.1

But folk imagination went further. Tales spread of purgatorial spirits returning at All Hallows, sometimes to seek prayers, sometimes to punish neglectful kin. In Ireland, stories told of the restless hosts — companies of dead souls wandering the land until prayers released them. In England, ghostly processions called the souls’ troop were said to pass through villages on Halloween night, and woe to anyone who looked them in the eye.2

2. Relics, Saints, and Vigil Nights

All Hallows was also a feast of saints — and in the Middle Ages, saints meant relics. Parishioners gathered to venerate relics on the vigil of November 1, sometimes processing them through villages. In some places, it was customary to sleep in churches beside relics on All Hallows’ Eve, hoping for dreams of saints or visions of one’s departed loved ones.3

One account from Normandy describes a man keeping vigil at a shrine, only to see the spirits of the local dead filing into the church as if summoned, each waiting for a blessing. The saints and the spirits mingled — holy and haunted together.

3. Folklore, Fire, and Games

The folk side of Halloween never disappeared. In parts of Britain, it was called Nut-Crack Night. Lovers placed nuts side by side in the fire: if they burned together, it meant harmony in marriage; if they popped apart, discord.4

Apples too were used for divination. A girl might peel an apple in one long strip and throw it over her shoulder, reading the letter it formed on the ground as the initial of her future husband. Mirrors were another tool: stand before one at midnight with a candle, and your future spouse’s face might appear — or a skull, if death awaited.5

These games, playful as they seem, reflect a medieval obsession with fate, marriage, and mortality — the three mysteries that haunted every household.

4. The Church’s Uneasy Tolerance

Not everyone approved. Medieval sermons survive that thunder against “heathen vanities” at All Hallows. Priests complained of mumming and disguises (early forms of guising or trick-or-treating), seeing them as devilish remnants of Samhain. Yet parish records also show churches quietly incorporating bonfires, vigils, and processions — trying to Christianize what people refused to abandon.6

In some villages, clergy even turned a blind eye to masquerades, provided the next morning the congregation filled the pews for Mass. As ever, belief was less a clean replacement than a messy weaving.

5. Obscure and Forgotten Tales

  • The Vision of the Knight Owen: a 12th-century story of a soldier guided through purgatory by St. Patrick at All Hallows, showing fire-rivers and tortured souls. It became one of the most popular medieval visions of the afterlife.7
  • The Black Book of Carmarthen contains Welsh poems that link Halloween with encounters between mortals and the dead, where warriors or lovers return briefly to speak on the eve of All Saints.8
  • In Yorkshire folklore, Halloween was the night witches gathered at crossroads to raise spirits, echoing older Celtic and Germanic crossroads lore.9

6. A Personal Reflection

Standing outside on an October night, I think of those medieval vigils — candles guttering, relics gleaming, villagers half-afraid to look too long into the dark. Halloween in the Middle Ages was not yet pumpkins and costumes, but it was already a night when the worlds overlapped. I feel kinship with those people, playing nut-crack games by the fire, whispering prayers for their dead, watching the shadows for signs of souls. Their fears and hopes are not so far from ours.

Closing: Into Witchcraft and the Devil’s Counterfeit

From Samhain to All Hallows, and now to the medieval night alive with ghosts, saints, and games — our path is winding closer to another figure. In the next post, we’ll meet the Devil’s Counterfeit: how witches and demons crept into Halloween’s shadow, and how the Church came to fear the very disguises and games it once tolerated.

Footnotes & Sources

  1. Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory (University of Chicago Press, 1984). ↩
  2. Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford, 1996). ↩
  3. Patrick Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 1994). ↩
  4. Steve Roud, The English Year (Penguin, 2006). ↩
  5. Daniel Harms, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Chelsea House, 2002). ↩
  6. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (Yale, 1992). ↩
  7. Vision of Owen, in St. Patrick’s Purgatory texts, 12th c. (edited by H.J. Lawlor, 1918). ↩
  8. A.O.H. Jarman, The Black Book of Carmarthen (University of Wales, 1982). ↩
  9. Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (Penguin, 1976). ↩

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