Everything about Lemuria Festival totally explained
In
Roman religion, the
Lemuralia or
Lemuria was a feast during which the
ancient Romans performed
rites to
exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome spectres of the restless dead, the
lemures or larvae were propitiated with offerings of
beans. On those days, the
Vestals would prepare sacred
mola salsa (salt cake) from the first ears of
wheat of the season.
In the
Julian calendar the three days of the feast were
9,
11, and
13 May. The
myth of origin of this ancient festival, according to Ovid, who derives
Lemuria from a supposed
Remuria was that it had been instituted by
Romulus to appease the spirit of
Remus (
Ovid,
Fasti, V.421ff;
Porphyrius ). Ovid notes that at this festival it was the custom to appease or expel the evil spirits by walking
barefoot and throwing black beans over the shoulder at night. It was the head of the household who was responsible for getting up at midnight and walking around the house with bare feet throwing out black beans and repeating the incantation, "With these beans I redeem me and mine" nine times. The household would then clash bronze pots while repeating, "Ghosts of my fathers and ancestors, be gone!" nine times.
Because of this annual
exorcism of the noxious spirits of the dead, the whole month of May was rendered unlucky for marriages, whence the proverb
Mense Maio malae nubent ("They wed ill who wed in May"), and thus the rush of June weddings— "because the weather is so nice"— in our own day.
On the culminating day of the
Lemuralia, May 13 in 609 or 610— the day being recorded as more significant than the year—,
Pope Boniface IV consecrated the
Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and
all the martyrs, and the feast of that
dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated at Rome ever since.
According to cultural historians, this ancient
custom was Christianized in the feast of
All Saints' Day, established in Rome first on May 13, in order to de-paganize the Roman
Lemuria. In the eighth century, as the popular observance of the
Lemuria had faded over time, the feast of All Saints was shifted to November 1, coinciding with the similar Celtic propitiation of the spirits at
Samhain.
Pope Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the
Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary.
The present official Roman Catholic position is that the Roman festival wasn't connected with the origin of
All Saints.
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