page_title: Allhallowtide
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Allhallowtide / History
caption_attribution_description: A Procession in the Catacomb of Callistus
context_page_description: Allhallowtide, Hallowtide, Allsaintstide, or the Hallowmas season, is the triduum encompassing the Western Christian observances of All Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, which last from 31 October to 2 November annually. Allhallowtide is a "time to remember the dead, including martyrs, saints, and all faithful departed Christians." The present date of Hallowmas and thus also of its vigil was established for Rome perhaps by Pope Gregory III and was made of obligation throughout the Frankish Empire by Louis the Pious in 835. Elsewhere, other dates were observed even later, with the date in Ireland being 20 April. In the early 11th century, the modern date of All Souls' Day was popularized, after Abbot Odilo established it as a day for the monks of Cluny and associated monasteries to pray for the dead.
context_section_description: The Christian attitude towards the death of martyrs is first exemplified in the New Testament, which records that after the beheading of St. John the Baptist, his disciples respectfully buried him. Stephen was likewise "given a Christian burial by his fellow-Christians after he had been stoned to death by a mob." Two of the Post-Nicene Fathers, Ephrem the Syrian, as well as John Chrysostom, both wrote about the importance of honoring the dead; the theologian Herman Heuser writes that in the early Church, the feast days of the martyrs were local observances, with churches being built on those sites where their blood was shed. Frances Stewart Mossier explains that this changed during the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, saying that: 
  This arrangement worked very well at first, but soon there were more martyrs than there were days in the year, and so one day was set apart in honor of them all, and called All Saints' Day. This took place about the year A.D. 610. The day of the year on which the festival first occurred was the first of May, and it was not till two hundred years after that it was changed to Nov. 1, the day we now observe. The Christians of those times were in the habit of sending the night before All Saints' Day in thinking over the good and helpful lives of those in whose honor the day was kept and in praying that they might be like them. Services were held in the churches, and candles and incense burned before the pictures and statues of the saints. It was to them one of the holiest, most significant days of all the year.
  Following the establishment of All Hallows' Day and its vigil, All Hallows' Eve in the 8th century A.D., Odilo of Cluny popularized the day to pray for All Souls, forming the third day of the triduum of Allhallowtide. It has been thought that the first three days of Allhallowtide may have originated as a ritualistic remembrance of the deluge in which the first night, Hallow's Eve remembers the wickedness of the world before flood. The second night then celebrates the saved who survived the deluge and the last night celebrates those who would repopulate the Earth.
  The octave of Allhallowtide, lasting "eight days was established by Pope Sixtus IV in 1430 for the whole Western Church." The octave, however was eliminated in the 1955 reforms of the Catholic Church, although it continues to be observed by many Anglicans. The faithful may still obtain a Plenary Indulgence by visiting a cemetery and praying for the dead during the octave of All Hallows. Within Allhallowtide, which has a theme revolving around martyrs and saints, many Christian denominations also observe the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on the first Sunday of November, to remember those who continue to be persecuted for their Christian faith. In the United Kingdom, the Church of England, mother church of the Anglican Communion, extended All Saints-tide to include Remembrance Sunday in the 20th century.
caption: Many of the remains of the martyrs of the ancient Church lie in the catacombs[18]
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