As a result of the Reformation the use of ceremonial lights was either greatly modified, or totally abolished in the Protestant Protestant Churches. Churches. In the Reformed (Calvinistic) Churches altar lights were, with the rest, done away with entirely as popish and superstitious. In the Lutheran Churches they were retained, and in Evangelical Germany have even survived most of the other medieval rites and ceremonies (e.g. the use of vestments) which were not abolished at the Reformation itself.
In the Church of England the practice has been less consistent. The first Prayer-book of Edward VI. directed two lights to be placed on the altar. This direction was omitted in the second Prayer-book; but the “Ornaments Rubric” Church of England. of Queen Elizabeth’s Prayer-book seemed again to make them obligatory. The question of how far this did so is a much-disputed one and is connected with the whole problem of the meaning and scope of the rubric (see [Vestments]). An equal uncertainty reigns with regard to the actual usage of the Church of England from the Reformation onwards. Lighted candles certainly continued to decorate the holy table in Queen Elizabeth’s chapel, to the scandal of Protestant zealots. They also seem to have been retained, at least for a while, in certain cathedral and collegiate churches. There is, however, no mention of ceremonial candles in the detailed account of the services of the Church of England given by William Harrison (Description of England, 1570); and the attitude of the Church towards their use, until the ritualistic movement of the 17th century, would seem to be authoritatively expressed in the Third Part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry, which quotes with approval the views of Lactantius and compares “our Candle Religion” with the “Gentiles Idolators.” This pronouncement, indeed, though it certainly condemns the use of ceremonial lights in most of its later developments, and especially the conception of them as votive offerings whether to God or to the saints, does not necessarily exclude, though it undoubtedly discourages, their purely symbolical use.[20] In this connexion it is worth pointing out that the homily against idolatry was reprinted, without alteration and by the king’s authority, long after altar lights had been restored under the influence of the high church party supreme at court. Illegal under the Act of Uniformity they seem never to have been. The use of “wax lights and tapers” formed one of the indictments brought by P. Smart, a Puritan prebendary of Durham, against Dr Burgoyne, Cosin and others for setting up “superstitious ceremonies” in the cathedral “contrary to the Act of Uniformity.” The indictments were dismissed in 1628 by Sir James Whitelocke, chief justice of Chester and a judge of the King’s Bench, and in 1629 by Sir Henry Yelverton, a judge of Common Pleas and himself a strong Puritan (see Hierurgia Anglicana, ii pp. 230 seq.). The use of ceremonial lights was among the indictments in the impeachment of Laud and other bishops by the House of Commons, but these were not based on the Act of Uniformity. From the Restoration onwards the use of ceremonial lights, though far from universal, was not unusual in cathedrals and collegiate churches.[21] It was not, however, till the ritual revival of the 19th century that their use was at all widely extended in parish churches. The growing custom met with fierce opposition; the law was appealed to, and in 1872 the Privy Council declared altar lights to be illegal (Martin v. Mackonochie). This judgment, founded as was afterwards admitted on insufficient knowledge, produced no effect; and, in the absence of any authoritative pronouncement, advantage was taken of the ambiguous language of the Ornaments Rubric to introduce into many churches practically the whole ceremonial use of lights as practised in the pre-Reformation Church. The matter was again raised in the case of Read and others v. the Bishop of Lincoln (see [Lincoln Judgment]), one of the counts of the indictment being that the bishop had, during the celebration of Holy Communion, allowed two candles to be alight on a shelf or retable behind the communion table when they were not The “Lincoln Judgment.” necessary for giving light. The archbishop of Canterbury, in whose court the case was heard (1889), decided that the mere presence of two candles on the table, burning during the service but lit before it began, was lawful under the first Prayer-Book of Edward VI. and had never been made unlawful. On the case being appealed to the Privy Council, this particular indictment was dismissed on the ground that the vicar, not the bishop, was responsible for the presence of the lights, the general question of the legality of altar lights being discreetly left open.
The custom of placing lighted candles round the bodies of the dead, especially when “lying in state,” has never wholly died out in Protestant countries, though their significance has long been lost sight of.[22] In the 18th century, moreover, it was still customary in England to accompany a funeral with lighted tapers. Picart (op. cit. 1737) gives a plate representing a funeral cortège preceded and accompanied by boys, each carrying four lighted candles in a branched candlestick. There seems to be no record of candles having been carried in other processions in England since the Reformation. The usage in this respect in some “ritualistic” churches is a revival of pre-Reformation ceremonial.
See the article “Lucerna,” by J. Toutain in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dict. des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris, 1904); J. Marquardt, “Römische Privatalterthümer” (vol. v. of Becker’s Röm. Alterthümer), ii. 238-301; article “Cièrges et lampes,” in the Abbé J. A. Martigny’s Dict. des Antiquités Chrétiennes (Paris, 1865); the articles “Lichter” and “Koimetarien” (pp. 834 seq.) in Herzog-Hauck’s Realencyklopädie (3rd ed., Leipzig. 1901); the article “Licht” in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexikon (Freiburg-i.-B., 1882-1901), an excellent exposition of the symbolism from the Catholic point of view, also “Kerze” and “Lichter”; W. Smith and S. Cheetham, Dict. of Chr. Antiquities (London, 1875-1880), i. 939 seq.; in all these numerous further references will be found. See also Mühlbauer, Gesch. u. Bedeutung der Wachslichter bei den kirchlichen Funktionen (Augsburg, 1874); V. Thalhofer, Handbuch der Katholischen Liturgik (Freiburg-i.-B., 1887), i. 666 seq.; and, for the post-Reformation use in the Church of England, Hierurgia Anglicana, new ed. by Vernon Staley (London, 1903).
(W. A. P.)
[1] “O Fire, thou knowest all things!” See A. Bourquin, “Brahma-karma, ou rites sacrés des Brahmans,” in the Annales du Musée Guimet (Paris, 1884, t. vii.).
[2] J. Toutain, in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire, s.v. “Lucerna.”
[3] This is quoted with approval by Bishop Jewel in the homily Against Peril of Idolatry (see below).
[4] This symbolism—whatever it was—was not pagan, i.e. the lamps were not placed in the graves as part of the furniture of the dead—in the Catacombs they are found only in the niches of the galleries and the arcosolia—nor can they have been votive in the sense popularized later.