TOUSSAINT. Halloween, All Saints Day and Day of the Dead… If these three dates follow each other in the calendar, they do not have the same meaning. We tell you all about the origin of these feasts of the saints and the dead.
[Mis à jour le 27 octobre 2022 à 13h42] All Saints’ Day, which celebrates our deceased every November 1, is a public holiday in the French calendar. This religious holiday is celebrated this year 2022 on tuesday november 1 and is intended to honor the deceased in the Catholic Church. In the Republican calendar, this holiday now corresponds to a vacation period for all schoolchildren in France.
All Saints Day is also the cousin of a pagan holiday in Anglo-Saxon countries: Halloween. And what is the difference with the Day of the Dead, typical of current Mexican culture? Halloween, All Saints Day and Day of the Dead… If these three dates follow each other in the calendar, they do not have the same meaning. We tell you all about the origin of these feasts of the saints and the dead.
A few days after the winter time change, the pagan holiday of Halloween moves ahead of All Saints’ Day in this series of events that truly usher us into autumn. The pumpkin festival born in the Celtic countries is indeed celebrated during the evening of October 31, on D-1 of All Saints. Its very name refers to the feast of the dead: the original long version, the Scottish word Allhallow-even, means “the eve of All Saints”. From the 8th century, the Catholic Church initiated a rapprochement with the future Halloween, then a pagan festival celebrated by the Celts at the beginning of autumn under the name of “Feast of Samhain”. Pope Gregory III introduced at that time All Saints’ Day or All Saints’ Day on November 1, in the calendar of major Christian festivals of the Catholic Church.
The feast of the dead takes place on November 2, prayers are read for all the deceased, in order to ensure the salvation of their souls. The tradition appeared in the Benedictine communities, notably in Cluny, shortly before the year 1000, before spreading to all of Europe with the consent of the popes. In some countries like Mexico, November 2 is the most important. During the Dia de Muertos, whole families gather in the cemeteries to make offerings (food, skull statuettes, flowers, etc.) on the altars erected in honor of the deceased. The joyful nature of this holiday contrasts with our very solemn celebrations.
The name Toussaint was also used as a first name, especially in the 19th century. The most famous Toussaint is probably Toussaint Louverture, hero of Haitian independence. It is also the name of a commune of Seine-Maritime, which has 700 inhabitants. It is located near Fécamp.
In 1755, the Lisbon earthquake caused the death of 10,000 to 100,000 people. On November 1, 1954, the first upheavals of the Algerian War : the FLN organizes attacks during a day the Parisian media will qualify as “Toussaint rouge”. In 1970, the fire at the “Le 5-7” nightclub in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, in Isère, caused the death of 146 people, the majority of whom were young people. The event will be remembered as the “Tragic Ball”. On the same day, in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty officially enters into force.
All Saints’ Day is a traditional holiday dedicated to honoring the saints and martyrs of the faith. Traditionally, this day is intended in France to visit our deceased loved ones and to place a bouquet on their graves. An opportunity, according to the Evous site, to “visit Parisian cemeteries, some of which are particularly suitable for walking, in a paradoxically festive atmosphere”.
Know that the tradition of chrysanthemums is not necessarily what you believe. Although All Saints’ Day was originally a religious festival (see below), the chrysanthemums come from a political will: that of celebrating, from 1919, the soldiers who fell for France during the First world War. That year, after the armistice of November 11th whose centenary will be celebrated in a few days, France is trying somehow to recover from the horror of the trenches. It was in this post-war context that Raymond Poincaré, then President of the Republic, asked the French to go and decorate the graves of soldiers who had died for their country with a chrysanthemum.
During All Saints’ Day, the flower will very quickly leave the strict commemorative framework and spread throughout France and Europe, as the main means of paying tribute to all the deceased. Until now, in fact, candles were placed on the graves during All Saints’ Day. But the chrysanthemum does not always have the same meaning abroad: in Japan, it is the symbol of the Emperor (we sometimes speak of the “chrysanthemum throne”). Because the chrysanthemum is native to the Far East (Korea, China, Japan). It would have been created by the hybridization of several wild species. It flowers naturally in autumn and resists frost well: it is therefore perfectly adapted to the autumnal climate of the beginning of November.
Originally, All Saints is a creation of the Catholic Church, which is never mentioned in the Bible. All Saints Day, feast of all saints, was created by Pope Boniface IV in 610 AD. The pontiff thus wanted to honor the memory of the martyrs among the first Christians. Indeed, converts to this monotheistic religion were massacred by the Romans at the beginning of our era. From the fourth century, Christians had paid posthumous homage to these early believers, exalting their courage and exchanging their relics.
The creation of a common feast allowed the Catholic hierarchy to bring together all these unofficial celebrations. Since then, on November 1, Catholics have celebrated All Saints’ Day. On this day, believers celebrate all the martyrs and saints of Christendom, known and unknown. The saints are remarkable people, given as an example for their actions. To become a saint, one must have performed miracles or particularly virtuous acts in the eyes of the Church, which can initiate a canonization procedure.
The date of All Saints has had a turbulent history. When Boniface IV decided to celebrate All Saints’ Day, this took place on May 13. It was indeed on that day that the Pope had consecrated the Pantheon, a Roman temple transformed into a burial place for Christian martyrs. The Pantheon celebrated all the gods, All Saints’ Day will celebrate all the saints. It was around 835 that Pope Gregory IV shifted the feast to November, 1st. This change in the liturgical calendar could have its origins in the dedication of a chapel in the Church of Saint Peter in Rome to all the saints by one of his predecessors. The date of All Saints Day has not always been fixed at the beginning of November and its origins are rooted in a troubled era, that of the High Middle Ages, marked by a spirituality built on the ruins of the Roman Empire. Despite its religious history, this holiday is not as threatened with oblivion as Whit Monday and remains an integral part of the Labor Code. All Saints’ Day also succeeded in the calendar of festivals at the end of the harvest and agricultural work before the great dormancy of winter.