A sin-eater is a person in some religious traditions who ritually takes on the sins of a household.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica published an article about the SIN-EATER, a man, who for a small payment, took upon himself (by means of food and drink) the sins of a corpse. The custom was once common in England, Scotland, and Wales. Each village had its official sin-eater and was notified as soon as a death occurred. He went to the house, and sat on a stool in front of the door. He was given a groat(chewy whole grain food), a crust of bread and a bowl of ale, and after he ate and drank, he stood and pronounced the peaceful rest of the corpse, for whom he had pawned his own soul. An earlier form seemed to have been more realistic, with the sin-eater being taken into the death-chamber and, a piece of bread and cheese that had been placed on the breast of the corpse by a relative, usually a woman, was handed it to the sin-eater, who ate it in the presence of the corpse. He was then paid, and immediately thrown out of the house amid cursing, hit with sticks, cinders or whatever other missiles were handy. The custom of sin-eating is generally supposed to be derived from the scapegoat (q.v.) in Leviticus xvi. 21, 22. A symbolic survival of it was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a “ funeral biscuit.” In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or “ dead-cakes,” marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The “ burial-cakes ” which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica published an article about the SIN-EATER, a man, who for a small payment, took upon himself (by means of food and drink) the sins of a corpse. The custom was once common in England, Scotland, and Wales. Each village had its official sin-eater and was notified as soon as a death occurred. He went to the house, and sat on a stool in front of the door. He was given a groat(chewy whole grain food), a crust of bread and a bowl of ale, and after he ate and drank, he stood and pronounced the peaceful rest of the corpse, for whom he had pawned his own soul. An earlier form seemed to have been more realistic, with the sin-eater being taken into the death-chamber and, a piece of bread and cheese that had been placed on the breast of the corpse by a relative, usually a woman, was handed it to the sin-eater, who ate it in the presence of the corpse. He was then paid, and immediately thrown out of the house amid cursing, hit with sticks, cinders or whatever other missiles were handy. The custom of sin-eating is generally supposed to be derived from the scapegoat (q.v.) in Leviticus xvi. 21, 22. A symbolic survival of it was witnessed as recently as 1893 at Market Drayton, Shropshire. After a preliminary service had been held over the coffin in the house, a woman poured out a glass of wine for each bearer and handed it to him across the coffin with a “ funeral biscuit.” In Upper Bavaria sin-eating still survives: a corpse cake is placed on the breast of the dead and then eaten by the nearest relative, while in the Balkan peninsula a small bread image of the deceased is made and eaten by the survivors of the family. The Dutch doed-koecks or “ dead-cakes,” marked with the initials of the deceased, introduced into America in the 17th century, were long given to the attendants at funerals in old New York. The “ burial-cakes ” which are still made in parts of rural England, for example Lincolnshire and Cumberland, are almost certainly a relic of sin-eating.
This is one of those things I find stranger than fiction!
