Sin-eater
Ritual consumer of sins to absolve the deceased.
A sin-eater is someone who performs a ritual meal to spiritually assume the sins of a person who has died. The food was thought to soak up the dead person’s sins, thereby freeing their soul. Folklorists and cultural anthropologists consider sin-eating a type of ritual, and it is most often linked to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the English counties next to Wales, and Welsh culture.
Similar practices have appeared in various times and places, but folklore scholars have not thoroughly studied how common sin-eating was, when it occurred, or how sin-eaters interacted with ordinary people and religious authorities. In Mesoamerican civilization, the Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl—whose name means “Sacred Filth” and who was associated with vice, purification, lust, filth, and adultery—had a redemptive role. At the end of a person’s life, they could confess misdeeds to her, and she would cleanse the soul by “eating its filth.”
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica notes that a symbolic remnant of sin-eating was seen as recently as 1893 in Market Drayton, Shropshire. There, after a service over the coffin in a house, a woman poured a glass of wine for each pallbearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a “funeral biscuit.” In Upper Bavaria, the practice still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the dead person’s chest and then eaten by the nearest relative. In the Balkan peninsula, a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by surviving family members. Dutch “doed-koecks” or “dead-cakes,” marked with the dead person’s initials and brought to America in the 1600s, were given to funeral attendees in old New York for a long time. The “burial-cakes” still made in parts of rural England, such as Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a leftover of sin-eating.
The term “sin-eater” seems to come from Welsh culture and is most often tied to Wales and the English counties bordering it. The earliest known source on the practice is the 17th-century diarist John Aubrey, who wrote that in Herefordshire there was “an old Custome” at funerals to hire poor people to take on all the sins of the deceased.
- Field
- Folk ritual, cultural anthropology
- Known for
- Consuming a ritual meal to absorb the sins of the deceased
- Region
- Wales, Scotland, Ireland, English counties bordering Wales
- Earliest attestation
- 17th-century diary of John Aubrey
- Related deity
- Tlazolteotl (Aztec goddess of vice and purification)
Lore & Background
The term 'sin-eater' appears to derive from Welsh culture and is most often associated with Wales and the English counties bordering Wales. Seventeenth-century diarist John Aubrey, in the earliest source on the practice, wrote that 'an old Custome' in Herefordshire had been at funerals to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the sins of the party deceased. The manner was that when the corpse was brought out of the house and laid on the bière, a loaf of bread was brought out and delivered to the sin-eater over the corpse, along with a mazar-bowl of maple full of beer, which he was to drink up, and sixpence in money. In consideration he took upon himself all the sins of the defunct and freed him or her from walking after they were dead.
John Bagford (c. 1650–1716) includes a description of the sin-eating ritual in his Letter on Leland's Collectanea. Notice was given to an old sire before the door of the house, when some of the family came out and furnished him with a cricket (low stool), on which he sat down facing the door; then they gave him a groat, a crust of bread which he ate, and a bowl of ale which he drank off at a draught. After this he pronounced the ease and rest of the soul departed, for which he would pawn his own soul. By 1838, Catherine Sinclair noted the practice was in decline but that it continued in the locality, describing it as a 'strange popish custom' in Monmouthshire and other Western counties.
Reader's Guide
Sin-eating represents a significant folk ritual that addresses universal human concerns about death, sin, and the afterlife. The practice, while poorly documented by folklore academics, appears to have been most prevalent in Wales and the Welsh Marches, with analogous instances found in other cultures such as the Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl, who would cleanse a soul by 'eating its filth.' The sin-eater was typically a poor person hired to take upon themselves the sins of the deceased, thereby freeing the soul from punishment. The ritual often involved bread and ale passed over the coffin, with the sin-eater making a short speech. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica notes symbolic survivals of sin-eating as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire, and in Upper Bavaria, the Balkan peninsula, and among the Dutch doed-koecks introduced to America. The practice was often viewed with suspicion by religious authorities, though some vicars may have turned a blind eye. Sin-eaters were sometimes abhorred by superstitious villagers as unclean, living in remote places and avoided like lepers. The legacy of sin-eating persists in local legends, such as that of Richard Munslow, said to be the last sin-eater of Shropshire, who died in 1906.
Did You Know?
- Seventeenth-century diarist John Aubrey provided the earliest known source on the practice, describing a custom in Herefordshire.
- In Meso-American civilisation, the Aztec goddess Tlazolteotl had a redemptive role, cleansing souls by 'eating its filth.'
- A local legend in Shropshire concerns the grave of Richard Munslow, who died in 1906, said to be the last sin-eater of the area.
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