Lighting in the middle ages was, indeed, effected, in a manner more or less refined, by means of torches, lamps, and candles. The candle, which was the most portable of them all, was employed in small and private evening parties; and, from an early period, it was used in the bed-chamber. For the table very handsome candlesticks were made, which were employed by people of rank, and wax-candles (cierges) were used on them. They were formed with an upright spike (broche), on which the candle was stuck, not, as now, placed in a socket. Thus, in a scene in one of the fabliaux printed by Barbazan, a good bourgeois has on his supper-table two candlesticks of silver, “very fair and handsome,” with wax-candles— Desor la table ot deus broissins,
Où il avoit cierges, d’argent,
Molt estoient bel et gent.
—Barbazan, vol. iv. p. 184.
So in the romance of “La Violette,” when the count Lisiart arrives at the castle of duke Gerart, on the approach of bedtime, two men-servants make their appearance, each carrying a lighted cierge, or wax-candle, and thus they lead him to his chamber— Atant lor vinrent doi sergant,
Chascuns tenoit j. cerge ardant;
Le conte menerent couchier.
—La Violette, p. 30.
This, however, appears to have been done as a mark of honour to the guest, for, even in ducal castles common candles appear to have been in ordinary use. In a bedroom scene in a fabliau printed by Meon (tom. i. p. 268), in which the younger ladies of the duke’s family and their female attendants slept all in beds in one room, they have but one candle (chandoile), and that is attached to the wood of the bed of the duke’s daughter, so that it would appear to have had no candlestick. One of the damsels, who was a stranger, and less familiar than the others, was unwilling to take off her chemise until the light was extinguished, for it must be remembered that it was the general custom to sleep in bed quite naked, and the daughter of the duke, whose bedfellow she was to be, blew the candle out— Roseite tantost la soufla,
Qu’à s’esponde estoit atachie.
Blowing out the candle was the ordinary manner of extinguishing it. In the “Ménagier de Paris,” or instructions for the management of a gentleman’s household, compiled in the latter half of the fourteenth century, the lady of the house is told, after having each night ascertained that the house is properly closed and all the fires covered, to see all the servants to bed, and to take care that each had a candle in a “flat-bottomed candlestick,” at some distance from the bed, “and to teach them prudently to extinguish their candles before they go into their bed with the mouth, or with the hand, and not with their chemise,” i. e., they were to blow their candle out, or put it out with their fingers, not to extinguish it by throwing their shifts upon it—another allusion to the practice of sleeping naked.[28] Extinguishers had not yet come into general use. People went to bed with a candle placed in a candlestick of a different description from that used at table; and we learn from a story in the “Ménagier de Paris” that it was customary for the servant or servants who had charge of the candles, to accompany them into their bedroom, remain with them till they were in bed, and then carry the candles away. Candles were, however, usually left in the chamber or bedroom all night; and there was frequently a spike, or candlestick, attached to the chimney; as in the fabliau just quoted there was, no doubt, a similar spike attached to the wood-work of the bed. The stick, whether fixed or movable, was made for convenience in placing the candle in the chamber, and not for the purpose of carrying it about; for the latter purpose, it appears to have been generally taken off the stick, and carried in the hand. Our cut [No. 177], taken from one of the carved stalls of the chapel of Winchester school, represents an individual, perhaps the cellarer or steward, who has gone into the cellar with a candle, which he carries in this manner, and is there terrified by the appearance of hobgoblins. In the fabliau of the “Chevalier à la Corbeille,” an old dueña, employed to watch over her young mistress, being disturbed in the night, is obliged to take her candle, and go into the kitchen to light it; from whence we may suppose that it was the custom to keep the kitchen fire in all night.
No. 177. The Cellarer in a Panic.
No. 178. Man with Lantern.
An old poem on the troubles of housekeeping, printed by M. Jubinal in his “Nouveau Recueil de Contes,” enumerates candles and a lantern among the necessaries of a household— Or faut chandeles et lanterne.
A manuscript of the thirteenth century in the French National Library (No. 6956) contains an illumination, which has furnished us with the accompanying cut ([No. 178]), representing a man holding a lantern of the form then in use, and lanterns are not unfrequently mentioned in old writers.
It appears to have been a common custom, at least among the better classes of society, to keep a lamp in the chamber to give light during the night. In one of the fabliaux printed in Meon, a man entering the chamber of a knight’s lady, finds it lit by a lamp which was usually left burning in it— Une lampe avoit en la chambre,
Par costume ardoir i siaut.
In the English romance of “Sir Eglamour,” several lamps are described as burning in a lady’s chamber— Aftur sopur, as y yow telle,
He wendyd to chaumbur with Crystyabelle,
There laumpus were brennyng bryght.
We may suppose, notwithstanding these words, that a lamp gave but a dim light; and accordingly we are told in another fabliau that there was little light, or, as it is expressed in the original, “none,” in a chamber where nothing but a lamp was burning,— En la chambre lumiere n’ot,
Hors d’un mortier qu’iluec ardoit,
Point de clarté ne lor rendoit.
In the accompanying cut ([No. 179]), taken from an illumination in a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris (No. 6988), a nun, apparently, is arranging her lamp before going to bed. The lamp here consists of a little basin of oil, in which, no doubt, the wick floated; but the use of the stand under it is not easily explained.
No. 179. A Bedroom Chamber Scene.
Lamps were used where a light was wanted in a room for a long time, because they lasted longer without requiring snuffing. The lamps of the middle ages were made usually on the plan of those of the Romans, consisting, as in the foregoing example, of a small vessel of earthenware or metal, which was filled with oil, and a wick placed in it. This lamp was placed on a stand, or was sometimes suspended on a beam, or perch, or against the wall. We have an example of this in the preceding cut ([No. 179]), which explains the term mortier (mortar) of the fabliau, it was a wick swinging in oil in a basin. Our cut [No. 180], taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Harl., No. 1227), represents a row of lamps of rather curious form, made to be suspended. In our next cut ([No. 181]), from a manuscript of the same date (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), we have lamps of a somewhat similar form, made to be carried in the hand.