Souling and soul caking

1511

Recurring Allhallowtide custom in which children and the poor go door to door singing and praying 'for the souls of the givers' in exchange for spiced soul cakes marked with a cross. In Cheshire it developed into souling plays featuring a death-and-resurrection sequence and a participant wearing a horse skull. The earliest reported souling activity dates to 1511; Shakespeare alludes to 'pulling like a beggar at Hallowmas' in 1593.