examination of materials, wicking,and techniques for recreatingmedieval candles

5/28/2018 Examination of Materials, Wicking,and Techniques for RecreatingMedieval Candles

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Examination of Materials, Wicking,and Techniques for Recreating

Medieval CandlesEric Vought

Copyright 2003, 2004 Eric Vought

Revision HistoryRevision 20031203.1 03 Dec 2003

Initial publication.Revision 20031210.1 10 Dec 2003

Revised after Magna Faire.Revision 20040215.1 15 Feb 2004

More editting. Added to tallow discussion.

Table of Contents

Background ...............................................................................................................2Sources .............................................................................................................3

Acknowledgements .....................................................................................................4Goals ........................................................................................................................4Materials ...................................................................................................................5Method .....................................................................................................................6

Results ......................................................................................................................8Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 10Beeswax vs Tallow............................................................................................ 10Crude Fiber Wicking ......................................................................................... 10Beeswax vs. Paraffin ......................................................................................... 11Modern vs. Twine Wicking ................................................................................. 11

Next Steps ............................................................................................................... 11

Abstract

In this article, we report on the construction and test burning of a selection of candles using historicalmaterials and construction to varying degrees. We compare and contrast the different techniques in order

to give the re-enactor or historical recreator an idea of the tradeoffs involved in using "correct" lighting.Along the way, we shed some light on what crafters and users of medieval lighting materials might haveexperienced.

A draft of this article was originally presented in competition at the 2003 Magna Faire and RegionalArts and Sciences Competition for the Kingdom of Meridies in the Society for Creative Anachronisms

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BackgroundI have been a mundane candlemaker for some years and am now doing so professionally. My involve-ment with the SCA has naturally led to an interest in period candlemaking and historical reproduction.Appropriate documentation for reproduction candles is particularly difficult to find, and accurate de-scriptions of the behavior and construction of such candles are nearly non-existant. Candlemaking was acommon manual skill and it seems that medieval chandlers saw no need to document the process. Addi-tionally, as candles are designed to be consumed and wax is subject to mice, few examples survive.

Many candlemakers or organizations dealing with candlemaking (e.g.: wax suppliers, The National

Candle Association, etc.,) have a short blurb about the history of candlemaking. These histories gener-ally have about the same form: they start with Egyptian rushlights, talk briefly about the Romans pour-ing tallow over some unidentified form of wicking, occasionally make a short side trip into folks light-ing ducks on fire, and then go into the medieval candles. The medieval chandlers, they assert, had thechoice between tallow, which was smoky and smelled bad, and beeswax, which was and is terribly ex-pensive. Then, in the 1800's, along came paraffin and the future was bright; paraffin burns cleanlywithout odor and smell and it is cheap enough for the masses.

Paraffin is made from petroleum distillates which, by and large, have replaced traditional ingredients inmany housewares and toiletry products. The petroleum industry has pushed hard for this wholesale ad-

Examination of Materials, Wicking, and Tech-niques for Recreating Medieval Candles

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option and the heavy, decades long, marketting effort may have distorted most people's view of historic-al practice. In all likelihood, period products are not as bad and paraffin not quite as perfect as made out.

In this article, we present some historical source material, but mostly use it to provide direction for amore direct and practical inquiry. We produce candles by a number of methods with a number of materi-als and burn them. We compare the various techniques and provide some speculation on the methods of

period artisans. We will then use these data in future research. Our experience will allow us to better un-derstand period sources and perhaps give us a better idea where to look for them.

Sources

Several sources were used to provide direction. The sources that have been located thus far and whichwere used here are not themselves period. Only one quote is from a primary source and it is from 1609and quoted indirectly in an online discussion. We are currently more interested in what may have beenthan what actually was; we will look to more direct literary support after the conclusion of our experi-ment. We take several quotes from Stefan's Florilegium [http://www.florilegium.org], an online list ofquotes discussing medieval crafts, and one from the 1911 Britanica Encyclopedia.

First of all, we note that medieval candles may have been made from a variety of materials and even a

mix of them:

Candles in period could be tallow, beeswax, or a mixture thereof. It is interesting tonote that unlike current fashion, medieval beeswax candles were apparently refined asmuch as possible, to make them as white as possible. Modern yellow beeswax candlesare only accurate inasmuch as they are made from beeswax, but they are not refinedenough for medieval tastes.

Margaret FitzWilliam of Kent

The assertion that yellow candles were not used is directly contradicted by the following quote, whichtalks about dying white candles to look like the "yellow wax". Dying with turmuric is a workable tech-nique I have used many times with paraffin candles. It produces a canary yellow. This may indicate anerror in the above assertion or it may indicate a difference in taste in fashion over time, in differentcountries, or different classes. It is possible, for instance, that pure white candles ("virgin wax") wereused in church ceremonies and for entertaining guests, but that crude wax found everyday use in ahousehold or in clerical work. Note that people in the Rennaisance had a taste for the antique (as evid-enced by their "Medieval Faires" in Arthurian garb (Maurice Keene, Chivalry, 1984) and may have beendying white wax yellow to look "quaint" much in the same way that people today dye refined white sug-ar brown.

39. A Delicate Candle for a Ladies Table. Cause your duch Candles to bee dipped inVirgin wax, so as their last coat may bee meerly wax: and by this meanes you maycarry them in your hand without melting, and the sent of the tallow will not breakthorow to giue offence: but if you would haue them to resemble yellow wax-candles,then first let the tallow be coloured with Turmerick boyled therein, and strained: andafter your Candles haue beene dipped therein to a sufficient greatnesse, let them taketheir last coat from yellow wax: this may be done in a great round Cane of tinplate,

hauing a bottome, and being somewhat deeper than the length of your candles: and asthe waxe spendeth, you may still supply it with more.From Plat's Delights for Ladies, 1609

I have not been able to discover the precise meaning of "duch candles", but from context, this passageappears to suggest a method for mitigating the shortcomings of tallow candles. This is in essence thesame method used today when chandlers coat low quality paraffin with a layer of high quality, high-melting point paraffin. The higher temperature wax on the outside traps the molten wax from the centerand prevents dripping.


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The following quotes discuss the [alleged] practice of pouring tapers rather than dipping. The abovequote suggests that wax tapers were dipped at least some of the time at least by 1609. The below discusspouring wax over wicks in order to conserve expensive wax. Unfortunately, the 1911 encyclopedia entrydoes not date this practice. The first quote, however, provides some useful tidbits for future research, in-cluding attempting to track down the church mandate. The encyclopedia entry elsewhere notes that me-dieval wax candles were known as bougies and that "candle" in some parts referred specifically to tal-

low. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (via Dictionary.com)definesbougie to be a "fine wax" and notes that it comes from the name of a city in northern Algeria.This may be useful when source hunting later. The same dictionary notes that candle comes from theLatincandela; the verbcanderemeans "to shine".

Beeswax Candles: Basically beeswax was to[sic] sticky to mold and to[sic] expensiveto dip. While we can get good quality beeswax fairly cheap in large quantity today nosuch period resource existed, particularly in early period. Pure wax candles were def-initely reserved for high nobility and prominent church functions. More common wasa mix of wax and tallow. There is still a church edict, I believe passed in the late1300's, in force mandating the percentage of beeswax on certain church alters and hol-idays. Molded candles originated somewhere in France in the late 1400's and eventhen were used almost exclusively for tallow. The most common method, which is stillused today, of making beeswax candles is pouring. In essence you have a copper melt-

ing/ catch pan at the edge of a large raised vertical wheel on which your wicks arehung (see diagram below). The wicks were predipped, straightened, and hung on thewheel with loops on both ends of the wick. As you turn the wheel the wicks pass overthe copper pan and can be flipped (this makes an even thickness instead of the taperingyou get with dipped candles) and then wax is ladled over it. By the time it comesaround again the wax is sufficiently hardened to flip and pour again. I've tried this pro-cess many times and while initially tricky it does work quite well. I use extra large/wide popcorn bins in a double boiler configuration with a simple wooden hangingstand/brace over the top and a portable electric burner (carefully marked so I knowwhat temp I want) underneath. With only a pound of wax and some careful pouring Ican easily make a candle 14 -16 inches tall. With several pounds of wax I can make awhole row of them.

Bran the Dark; Barony of Mag Mor; Calontir

Pouring, used in the case of wax, which cannot well be moulded because it contractsin cooling and also has a tendency to stick to the moulds, consists in ladling moltenwax upon the wicks suspended from an iron ring. When of the desired thickness thecandles are rolled under a plate on a marble slab.

1911 Britanica Encyclopedia --- "CANDLE"[1911encyclopedia.org]

We also have a basis for discussing molded candles after 1300.

AcknowledgementsLady Aine of Glencoe (MKA Cathleen McIntire) and Juliana ingean David (MKA Arwen Garrett) have

been of considerable help dipping batches of tapers. Juliana has also contributed a fair amount of thewicking that went into these experiments. I would also like to thank the judges at Magne Faire for theircomments on the first round of this project.

GoalsThe goal of this project was to explore a number of techniques and combinations thereof, gather notesand impressions, and use the results to target further research. As such, I wanted to evaluate the follow-ing materials for candles: beeswax (yellow, white, and minimally refined), tallow, mixes of tallow and


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1An astute reader may notice the candle with lucet-cord wicking in the photo on this page. I have experimented with lucet-cordwicking, but it is very labor intensive and I have no indication for its use earlier than the colonial period.

beeswax. Paraffin is not period (1854), but is nevertheless used by many reenactors and serves as a use-ful point for comparison. I also planned to compare modern wicking to unbleached hemp twine and ex-periment with twisted dried grass. Lastly, I wanted to identify the tradeoffs in four production tech-niques: dipping candles in wax, dipping in wax floating on water, pouring wax over the wick, and mold-ing.

I had several specific questions in mind:

Is tallow as bad (smelly, smoky) as described? Does it have any positive features?

How much work is involved maintaining non-self-trimming wicking? Does the candle material makea diference?

Is beeswax really uneconomical for the reenactor, particularly given the long burn times of beeswaxcandles?

Can dried grasses or other crude vegetable fiber be used for wicking? What is it like?

MaterialsThe beeswax used was white refined, yellow semi-refined, and golden minimally-refined.

There were some serious difficulties in obtaining significant quantities of tallow. In the past, I have ob-tained it for soap-making and other uses from the grocery store meat counter. The increase in out-sourcing for meat cuts means that these stores no longer have tallow. The tallow used was two-thirdsrendered beef fat and one-third mixed fats including beef, pork, and poultry. I had a very limited amountof tallow available, and this affected my choice of tests.

The paraffin was a premium-grade 145 degree wax with no other additives.

The modern wicking is a flat braided wicking recommended for standard sized tapers. Twine wickingwas made with unbleached hemp which was hand-plied using the reverse-wrap to about the thickness ofgarden twine. Normally, a candlemaker would vary the type and thickness of the modern wicking forbeeswax and paraffin candles (beeswax requires a more open and thicker wicking). Since I am not as in-terested in the behavior of beeswax with modern wicking, I have used the same for both candle types. 1


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From left to right: modern flat wicking, hand-made lucet wicking, hand-made twine wicking

Grass was cut and brought in to dry. Due to wet weather outside and a need to accelerate the drying pro-cess, I stuck it in a warm oven in an open pan in about the same manner that I would dry hand-groundflour or dry-roast roots. I have used this same preparation to filter water or hot tallow in the past. I pliedthe fiber loosly and prepped some of it by dipping in wax; some of it was actually soaked in wax for 30minutes or more.

MethodI made and tested pairs of tapers as follows:

7" paraffin with modern wicking and with twine wicking

7" yellow beeswax with modern wicking and twine wicking

7" tapers of 50% beeswax and 50% tallow.

These tapers were dipped. I also made the following items which were not as rigorously tested but willbe commented on below:

Small (birthday-candle-sized) tapers of pure tallow.

Poured tapers from white beeswax

A 2" tall, 3" diameter pillar of half beeswax, half tallow and one of pure beeswax, both with twinewicking

A poured beeswax taper with a dried grass wick and one with a grass wick that had been soaked for30 minutes in melted beeswax.

A small taper of tallow with a dried grass wick.

A small pillar of minimally processed beeswax.


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Additional taller items for display with the entry. Shorter items were burned to conserve wax and re-duce burn time.

The tapers were dipped via a bare wick, folded such that a pair of tapers is made from each wick. A setof hooks over the stove allowed me to rotate three pairs at a time, allowing the wax of one pair to cool

while dipping another. The wicks were prepared by dipping once, straightening, then cooling. When thecandles were finished and were still warm, they were rolled over parchment paper to smooth. An oliveoil can was used for dipping. The can is tall enough for standard tapers but is narrow and uses relativelylittle wax. The wax level was allowed to drop naturally as the tapers were dipped, grading and taperingthe candles.

Pouring was accomplished by heating wax in a pitcher, then ladelling it over a wick hung by a hook overa pie pan. The wick was flipped on a regular basis in order to even out the candle. Wax caught in the piepan was peeled up and dropped back in the melting pot on a regular basis. The poured candles were alsorolled on the parchment paper.

For both the poured and dipped tapers, the wax was kept at approximately 160 degrees Fahrenheitthroughout. The high temperature paraffin used had a melting point of 145 degrees F, which was closeto that of the refined beeswax. Deviating from the optimum temperature is apparent; either the candlestarts to shrink instead of grow (too hot), or starts to become very lumpy (too cold). There is no need fora thermometer to track the temperature. The beeswax and tallow mix had a somewhat lower meltingpoint and the melting pot was adjusted down until the candles formed properly (approximately 145 de-grees F).

The molded candles were made by heating the wax in the melting pitcher and pouring into stainless steeland polycarbonate molds. Both mold styles have a wick hole in the bottom which is plugged by the


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2Since beeswax was harvested from the combs late in the season, finding cold weather for candlemaking was probably never aproblem.

knotted wick in the case of polycarbonate, and by the wick and either a screw or a rubber plug in thecase of the metal molds. The paraffin was poured in the range of 200 degrees F, the beeswax closer to180 and the beeswax/tallow 160-170. Wax for molded candles is heated to a higher temperature to allowair bubbles to escape while the wax sets up. I presume that medieval chandlers would have used eitherwood or clay molds, which are usually poured at somewhat lower temperatures than steel or polycarbon-ate since they do not conduct heat away as efficiently. Steel (or aluminum) and plastic yield glossier

candle surfaces than wood or clay but otherwise behave similarly.

Paraffin candles will unmold from steel/plastic molds relatively easily. As long as the mold is cleanedprior to use, the high temperature paraffin will unmold without additives or coatings. Any problems inthis respect can be resolved by sticking the mold in the freezer (or outside at this time of year) to shrinkthe wax away from the sides. This is not the case with beeswax, and I would expect beeswax/tallow tobe different as well. Beeswax is sticky and the mold must be coated with grease (I use olive oil) beforepouring. Beeswax must almost always be chilled before unmolding, meaning that, without refrigeration,candlemaking is best done in cold weather2. If a candle does not unmold, it must be destroyed, often bypouring boiling water over and into the mold and then remelting the wax.

The wicks for molded candles are prepared by dipping in wax prior to threading them into the mold.

This pre-soaking causes the candle to light faster and burn smoothly.

ResultsThe beeswax, small tallow, mixed tallow, and paraffin candles all burned well with either wicking. Thegrass-wicked beeswax candles would not burn unless held upside down at a 45 degree angle--- the grassapparently was not drawing wax to the flame. Tallow candles with grass wicking do burn, however. Fur-thermore, the grass wicking is much easier to keep straight than twine or modern wicking. I could read-ily imagine the equivalent of votives or container candles using grass wicking. The tallow burns ratherquickly, and the wicking does not; this produces a smoky, drippy, inefficient, and high maintenancecandle.

There were no significant differences in burn time for the tapers. The paraffin and mixed tallow candles

averaged 6 hours. The pure beeswax averaged 6.5 hours. This can easily be due to slight differences inmanufacture and an occasional draft in the room. It was invariably the leftmost candle which burnedshorter, indicating air flow issues. I intend to conduct further repititions with taller candles.

The pillars burned with no issues. There was a marked difference in burn time for the pillars. The


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beeswax and mixed tallow candles both burned in excess of 30 hours for a mere 2 inches. A paraffincandle of similar construction burned in only 5 hours.

There was no discernable odor for any of the tapers when burning. The refined beeswax candles had asomewhat plasticy scent when cold. The minimally refined beeswax had a honey scent both cold andburning. The tallow and mixed-tallow tapers were noticably sootier. This was determined by holding a

foil pieplate above the flame and noting the residue. The beeswax and paraffin tapers were close to thesame in this respect, with the paraffin being perhaps somewhat sootier.

The tallow candles were quite soft. The mixed tallow candles were less so, but still very soft when com-pared to paraffin or especially bayberry candles. Without overdipping, pure tallow candles will not sur-vive normal handling. The tallow mix candles dripped somewhat while the pure tallow dripped heavily.The tallow candles also had the disadvantage that the cats attempted to eat them.

The twine wicking was not self-trimming and required cutting ("snuffing") at intervals. For the tapers,they were cut to a quarter inch every half hour. For the (beeswax) pillars, they only needed trimmingonce in twelve hours. The twine yielded lumpier tapers because the grain of the wicking is more coarse.The preparation of the twine is important to producing smooth candles. The twine wicking does notblow out. When blown out, the wick continues to smoulder and smoke. If not extinguished by wettingthe fingers or using a candle extinguisher, the wick will burn to ash and become unusable.

All three taper methods worked with no serious issues. The dip method, of course required a large

amount of wax, approximately five pounds of beeswax in an olive oil can. Between seven and eightpounds were needed for "standard" length tapers. Note that beeswax tapers required significantly morewax by weight to fill the same container than paraffin.

Dipping into wax floating on water worked essentially the same. It was somewhat easier to regulate tem-perature and used less wax (approx. one pound at a time). A rather large gain in this case was a dramaticreduction in time spent waiting for wax to melt. It took over three hours to melt a full pot of wax, butless than an hour to boil water and melt one pound. Pouring wax over the wicks also used very little wax(I could probably get away with a half pound to pour one pair of tapers, consuming about 5 ounces). Itwas, however, rather involved and produced very lumpy tapers. I believe that, even with considerableexperience, pouring will produce lumpy candles as compared to dipping. Aside from the lumpiness,poured candles can be readily identified due to a vertical banding in the wax; dipped candles band hori-zontally as the wax hardens. Molded/extruded tapers as are now being produced do not have thesebands.

Molding the candles showed some interesting differences between the materials. Paraffin candles (usingthe 145 degree wax), as noted above, will demold without any issues. Beeswax is sticky and consider-able care must be taken.Adding tallowto the beeswaximproved mold release. There were further differ-ences in the way the candles set-up. Paraffin candles form a depression or well at the top as they cool.This well must be punctured to release trapped air and then the well is refilled. Beeswax formed a hol-low inside and tended to crack while setting up, requiring more care when cooling and topping offmolds. The tallow mix was somewhere between these extremes. Overall, the beeswax/tallow mix wasless sticky and easier to handle than beeswax alone . The more refined beeswax was less well behavedthan the semi-refined wax.


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3There appear to be significant differences in hardness between different types of tallow. Fat rendered from pork, for instance, isquite soft and is essentially useless by-itself forcfree-standing candles. Tallow from beef or poultry is harder.

Conclusion

Beeswax vs Tallow

We now have a much more complete and complex picture of the various available materials than we did

to start with. In particular, the choice between tallow and beeswax is more than a matter of "tallow bad,beeswax expensive". There are clear reasons for adulterating (or overdipping) tallow with beeswax andmore reasons for adulterating beeswax with tallow than mere economy. Tallow used as a wax condition-er improves the behavior of beeswax, much in the way that stearic acid extracted from tallow is stillused to improve paraffin today. Certain types of wicking probably used in period appear to be unusablewith beeswax.

We have not found many of the supposed downsides of tallow in this experiment. Tallow is clearly toosoft for regular use or handling, but it is not terribly smoky compared to paraffin, no smell was discern-able, and the softness can be mitigated by mixing/overdipping with beeswax or with stearic acid for co-lonial or civil war era reenactment3 It is possible that the reputation for smell comes from the samesource as the reported bad smell of period tallow soaps: improperly rendered fats or the use of drippingsfrom cooking. Bacon grease, for instance, does have a strong odor as it burns, as does spoiled fat. I amalso forced to speculate on the effect of an animal's diet on the odor of the fat: venison from the north

eastern US which grazes on cedar and other pungent plants takes on a sharp flavor, but grain-fed venisonfrom further west does not.

Crude Fiber Wicking

The results of the experimentation with dried grass also opens up a number of interesting questions. Wasthere a period (or locale) in which beeswax was not used because it would not burn with the availablewicking? Are some forms of grass or crude vegatable fiber better than others? Were the poor burn char-acteristics (smoke, dripping, excessive need for trimming) mitigated in some fashion? In what way doesthe behavior of such candles relate to the reputation of tallow for being smoky in general?

The poor burn characteristics of tallow tapers with crude grass fiber may have placed considerable pres-sure on the form such candles took. Getting a drippy, soft tallow taper to stand up and shed light without

burning down the house would be a significant challenge which the stiffness of the fiber does not seemto mitigate. Nor is overdipping with beeswax likely to be sufficient in this case (this assertion will betested in later experiments).

As a candlemaker, I would expect period crude vegetable fiber candles to take one of two forms: Thefirst form would be a rigid "wick" which is merely soaked and coated with tallow rather than dipped.This may represent the early Egyptian rushlights and approach a torch-like form. The lack of a thick lay-er of tallow would reduce dripping and force the substrate to actually combust more completely. Thesecond form would be something approaching a modern votive or container-candle. Tallow has many ofthe characteristics of modern soy-based wax, which is used almost exclusively for container candles. Arelatively stiff fiber wick would perform the same function as modern wire or paper core wicking. Thewalls of the container prevent dripping and slow the rate of burn as well as making the candle safer andeasier to handle. In modern applications, a small amount of petrolatum is used to make the wax cling tothe sides of the container. A small amount of beeswax may have the same effect.

Clearly glass container candles would be economically prohibitive in period. Glass containers have theadvantage of being transparent, which allows the light of the flame to shine through as it burns down in-to the container. Container candles would still function, however, if made from pottery, wood, or metal,though they would not light as well. Placing them beneath a reflective surface, such as a metal "hat",would improve their lighting ability. The other option is to fix the height of the flame by fully enclosingthe fuel and letting the wick, which does not burn well anyway, stay at the same level. This is essentiallya tallow lamp.


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4That is: aside from environmental/political considerations relating to the use of petroleum distillates. Beeswax is a renewable re-source and its purchase can support local beekeepers and small farmers.

It will be interesting to see if any of these variations appear in early period artwork, literary sources, orarchaeological remains.

Beeswax vs. Paraffin

For the reenactor, the question of economy regarding the use of paraffin is also muddied. In the taperstested here, there was little advantage to the use of beeswax. With period wicking and some care to col-oration, paraffin candles or a mix of paraffin/beeswax would likely pass for wax/tallow candles in peri-od, especially if the comment about white beeswax being preferred is held up by a search of primarysources. The choice of wicking is dominating the appearance of the candles here, and, at three times thecost, it is difficult to justify the use of beeswax tapers for regular use 4.

With pillar candles, however, the economic advantage of beeswax is clear. For six times the burn time, amere threefold increase in the cost of wax is a bargain. A single beeswax pillar can last through a longevent like Pennsic or many shorter events or feasts. The fact that the candles are more authentic makesthe choice easy. The use of longer burning wax also makes handling the period wicking considerablyeasier since snuffing will be required with much less frequency.

Modern vs. Twine Wicking

The behavior and appearance of twine wicking versus modern wicking is marked. Here we refer to thevenerable "blink test": would an actual medieval person blink if suddenly presented with the item inquestion? A candle, of whatever material, with modern wicking, would not pass the "blink test". Acandle with twine wicking, even if made of paraffin, likely would. Given the increase in authenticity, itseems that the small additional maintenance involved with period wicking is easily justified, especiallyas it produces a need for further authentic trappings--- namely, a candle snuffer.

Next StepsThis examination has identified several areas for future study. These include:

A search for actual church edicts regulating the composition of candles.

Evidence to support or refute assertions about the level of refinement of period beeswax.

More experimentation with pure tallow candles. I am currently working to secure a consistent sup-ply.

More and more rigorous burn tests. In particular, determining the best formulation (thickness, ply-ing, material) for beeswax candles and whether there is a consistent improvement in burn time forbeeswax versus paraffin.

A search for period indications of mechanisms to mitigate problems with tallow and crude fiberwicking.

Further documentation of period coloring of candles. I have amassed a fair bit of information aboutthe effects of certain herbs and spices on candle color and scent, but have no indications of theirperiod use.

Investigation of the termbougieand expanding my search for documents to include this term.


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Continued development of technique for poured tapers and a search for primary sources. Can pouredtapers approach the consistency of dipped tapers? Are there other advantages to the technique I havenot yet discovered?

At a lower priority, I also intend to investigate other period (or potentially period) fuels, including tallow

tree (currently on an import control list in the US), cinnamon tree wax (oriental), and olive oil (the namefor crude olive oil, lampata, comes from its use as in lighting).


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examination of materials, wicking,and techniques for recreatingmedieval candles

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