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Candle chandelier: Medieval Lighting Marvels



The candle chandelier of the medieval period is the modest wooden forerunner of its modern-day often ornately designed customized cousins. The common point between the two lighting tool types is that both are mounted from ceilings. They are basically branched light fixtures with two or more arms bearing lights.

TRACING THE MODEST BEGINNINGS

In fact, the roots of this accessory have been traced to the European royal assemblies of the middle Ages.  The earliest documented proof of this branched ceiling-mounted light fixture is its illustration in King René’s Tournament Book, published in 1460.

It has been depicted as a wooden cross with several spikes at the end of the four open arms. The spikes were the pivots on which the burnt candles were secured. This robust and yet often light-weight assembly of light was finally hoisted to the required height with the aid of a chain or rope that remained suspended from a hook.

With time, lots of changes have been brought into the entire gamut of chandeliers. While the early chandeliers were simple means to hold candles, the ornate chandeliers of today have provisions to hold several lamps. Besides, the latter group is available in complex arrays of prisms.

WHAT IS A PRISM?

The roots of the word have been traced to the Greek terms, ‘prism’ and ‘mat’, which connote the process of sawing. Therefore, a prism is a medium to refract (break or distribute) light into its constituent seven primary rainbow colors known by the acronym ‘VIBGYOR’  – violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

A prism is a solid crystal or glass usually transparent figure. Its sides are parallelograms. Two ends of this structure remains equally parallel and rectilinear to each other. Such a structure can be triangular in shape, too.

The refracting surfaces are at an acute angle with each other. This typical arrangement of the surface separates light into a spectrum of hues which forms the point of attraction of the modern-day chandeliers.

CANDLE CHANDELIERS VERSUS BULB CHANDELIERS

The discovery of electricity and the invention of various techniques in the fields of power generation as well as in glass-making and glass designing have brought about many developments in the chandelier industry. The result is that this lighting accessory has now come to be dovetailed into various innovative designs. Nowadays chandeliers have multipurpose utilities. Bulbs of varying voltages, shapes and sizes are now used in chandeliers.

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