The surprising Catholic origins of England’s hot cross bun

Rome Newsroom, Apr 18, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Good Friday more than 660 years ago, the hot cross bun became part of English culture as well as Catholic history.

The origins of the beloved baked treat traditionally made with currants, spices, flour, and eggs is closely linked to a cathedral dedicated to St. Alban, England’s first saint and martyr.

Located north of London in England’s Hertfordshire county, St. Albans Cathedral stands where the fourth-century protomartyr was executed and buried around A.D. 300. His 1,700-year-old shrine, housed within the cathedral, is believed to be the oldest continuous site of Christian pilgrimage in Great Britain.

According to Stephen de Silva, St. Albans Cathedral’s longest-serving guide of more than 45 years, religious brothers who lived in the cathedral’s abbey in the 14th century invented the original hot cross bun for both charitable and catechetical reasons. The bun was originally called the “Alban bun.”

Oral and written historical accounts suggest Brother Thomas Rodcliffe first baked and distributed the special spiced buns to the poor on Good Friday in 1361 to mark the close of the liturgical season of Lent and the beginning of Easter.

Deliberately baked with the “sign of the cross” to associate it “with Good Friday and Jesus’ death,” de Silva said the popularity of the medieval buns evolved from a local Catholic custom to a British baking tradition that even spread to other countries.

The fact that the hot cross bun has become a recognizable symbol of English culture and a staple of British bakeries all year round is particularly impressive considering its 664-year-old history.

Under the English Reformation, ruling monarchs tried to stamp out Catholic religious practice in the country, including the baking and selling of the spiced medieval buns “seen as a practice from the Catholic traditional past,” de Silva said.

Soon after King Henry VIII cut ties with the Roman Catholic Church and enforced the 1534 Act of Supremacy to declare himself the head of the Church of England, he proceeded with the dissolution of monasteries between 1536 and 1541.

“The dissolution of the monasteries had a huge impact on food for the poor both in St. Albans and elsewhere,” de Silva told CNA. “In the medieval era, St. Albans Abbey owned much of the surrounding land and properties.”

“In 1539, the Abbey lands, including the mill, were seized by Henry VIII, parceled up, and either sold or gifted away,” he said. “The king gave Redbournbury Mill and its income to his daughter, later Queen Elizabeth I.”

Protestant Queen Elizabeth I followed in her father’s footsteps and continued the widespread persecution of Catholics, specifically targeting the Lenten bun that was being baked more frequently and in more places around England.

“There was a Religion Act of 1592 which was enacted to control the behavior and public worship of Catholics,” de Silva told CNA. “We do know that in her reign, there was an attempt to reign in the baking and the selling of these spice buns.”

In the spirit of the times, de Silva said the London clerk of markets issued the edict that allowed the spiced buns — “which would possibly be seen as a practice from the Catholic traditional past” — only to be sold at burials, Christmas, or on Good Friday.

In spite of government-imposed restrictions, local bakers helped carry on the tradition of the hot cross buns. In 1851, nearly 500 years after the story of the Lenten buns was passed down through oral history, the first documented account was written by a baker who said he wanted to follow the Good Friday tradition of Rodcliffe.

As the buns’ popularity continued to rise, an 1862 Herts Advertiser newspaper article tried to highlight the bread’s religious significance.

“The time-honored custom has therefore been observed over the centuries and will undoubtedly continue into posterity, bearing with it the religious remembrance it is intended to convey,” the local newspaper reported.

“Bread is always a food staple, and a special bread associated with Good Friday just has that extra meaning,” de Silva told CNA.