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| CANDLES
Margery Kempe describes how each pilgrim held a candle as they processed throughout the church. Candles were invariably a part of solemn devotional moments. Margery Kempe also speaks of celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi when a "solemn procession with many candles and great solemnity (that) went through the town" (Ch. 45). Candles were expensive and major objects of donor piety, the giving of candles often being commemorated in church records. The number of candles used marked the greater or lesser solemnity of a mass in official accounts. For example, the merchant guild of Bridgewater in 1393 stipulated that their chantry priest (one saying special prayers at a designated altar or chapel within a church) should provide Two torches which are to burn and illuminate every day during the elevation of Christ's body in the mass for the Blessed Virgin in the said choir, weighing 16 lb. The 1356 will of Agnes de Denton in the town of Thursby near Carlisle stated: I leave my soul to to God and the blessed Mary and my body to be buried in the parish church of Thursby before the altar of the blessed Mary. . . I leave in wax to burn about my body three stones (a measure) of wax. Candles and candlesticks often could be major objects of dedication. The cast bonze Gloucester Candlestick (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Inv. No. 7649-1861) dates from the 12th century. The translated inscription on the stem tells us: The devotion of Abbot Peter and his gentle flock gave me to the church of St. Peter at Gloucester. More prominent is the horizontal inscription on the rim: +LVCIS ON(VS): VIRTVTIS OPVS:DOCTRINA. REFVLGENS PREDICAT VT VICIO: NON TENEBRETVR HOMO. The weight of light (the candle), this labor of virtue (candlestick) shining with holy doctrine preaches that man must not be darkened by vice. See Miri Rubin. Corpus Christi: The
Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991: 60-62.
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