ALL SOULS' DAY, the day (Nov. 2 or, if that be a Sun day or festival of the first class, Nov. 3) set apart in the Roman Catholic Church for commemoration of the faithful departed; a custom based on the doctrine that souls which at death are not yet sufficiently purified to be fit for the Beatific Vision may be helped by the prayers of the faithful here on earth. The practice of devoting certain days to intercession for particular groups of the dead is of great antiquity; but the institution of this feast of general intercession is due to Odilo, abbot of Cluny (d. 1048), who ordered its observance in the Cluniac monas teries. It spread thence among other congregations, and became practically universal before the end of the i3th century. It was abolished in the Church of England at the Reformation, but has been revived in "Anglo-Catholic" churches. Among continental Protestants its tradition has been more tenaciously maintained, especially in Saxony, where, though its ecclesiastical sanc tion has long since lapsed, its memory survives strongly in popu lar custom. As in France people of all ranks and creeds &corate the graves of their dead on the jour des morts, so in Germany the people stream to the graveyards once a year with offerings of flowers.
Certain popular beliefs connected with All Souls' Day are of pagan origin and immemorial antiquity. In many Catholic countries the dead are believed by the peasantry to revisit their homes on All Souls' night and partake of the food of the living. In Tirol cakes are left for them on the table. In Brittany the people flock into the cemeteries at nightfall to kneel bare-headed at the graves of their loved ones, and to pour libations of milk or holy water on the tombstones, and at bedtime supper is left on the table for the dead.