Medieval Cresset Stone

When considering medieval lighting appliances, we generally think of small oil lamps, candles, lanterns, or perhaps chandeliers. Rarely do we mention objects made of stone or ceramic that provided light with the help of animal tallow. The simpler forms of these could be found even in modest households, while more complex, ornately designed pieces occurred mostly in religious settings. These carved objects—featuring three, four, five, seven, or more recesses and bearing a resemblance to egg crates—were typically mounted on pedestals. They functioned partly as everyday light sources and partly as liturgical lamps. A passage from the Rites of Durham, written in the mid-16th century, provides a vivid account of the object’s everyday use:

“In either end of the same Dortor was a four square stone, wherein was a dozen cressets wrought in either stone, being ever filled and supplied with the cooke as they needed, to give light to the monks and novices, when they rose to their mattens at midnight, and for their other necessary uses.”

Their liturgical role can presumably be linked to the emergence of All Souls’ Day and the associated cult of the dead, originating from the 11th-century ecclesiastical reforms of the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny. Based on this, these objects were primarily used as funerary lanterns in cemeteries, or as votive and memorial lamps within churches, specifically in the vicinity of altars.

The piece presented here was discovered in 2001 in the suburb of Buda, within the cemetery of the parish church dedicated to Saint Peter Martyr. The excavation, led by archaeologists Katalin Kérdő (1950–2019) and András Végh (1964–2024), took place on the site of today’s 5–13 Medve Street. Carved from sandstone, this round cresset stone features seven recesses on its surface; their function is clearly indicated by the soot visible around the rims.

A cresset stone in its original location in St Martin’s Church, Lewannick, Cornwall.
Photo: The Cornish Bird, Cornwall’s Hidden History Blog.