Book Chapter

Wax, cash and the mass. Making candles affordable in late medieval economies

  • Alexandra Sapoznik
  • Lluís Sales i Favà

By the later middle ages wax had become an indispensable element in Christian religious observance, used throughout churches, liturgical services and lifecycle events. Wax was therefore both essential and ubiquitous. It was also valuable and easily re-cycled. This paper analyses the use, reuse and barter of wax in circular economies within cathedrals, monasteries and professional guilds in England and Italy. It further considers how the circulation of wax within and outside these institutions could act as a mechanism to cut expenses and potentially increase profits or provide opportunities for religious participation among even the very poor.

  • Keywords:
  • Wax,
  • Candles,
  • Recycling,
  • Florence,
  • England,
+ Show More

Alexandra Sapoznik

King’s College London, United Kingdom

Lluís Sales i Favà

King’s College London, United Kingdom - ORCID: 0000-0002-0824-0135

  1. Acta Sanctorum Vol. 48: Oct. I. N.p., 1765.
  2. Bernardi, Claudio. 2000. “Corpus Domini: ritual metamorphoses and social changes in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Genoa.” In The Politics of Ritual Kinship. Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy, ed. Nicholas Terpstra, 228-42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Cassidy, Brendan. 1988. “The financing of the tabernacle of Orsanmichele.” Notes in the History of Art 8, 1: 1-6.
  4. Cassidy, Brendan. 1992. “Orcagna’s Tabernacle in Florence: Design and Function.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 55, 2: 180-211.
  5. Ciasca, Raffaele, ed.. 1922. Statuti dell’arte dei medici e speziali. Firenze: Stablimenti Grafici Editoriali di Attilio Vallecchi.
  6. Ciasca, Raffaele. 1927. L’Arte dei Medici e Speziali nella Storia e nel Commercio Fiorentino dal Secolo XII al XV. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki.
  7. Closas i Mestre, Ramon. 2009. “L’activitat de candeler de cera de l’apotecari de l’Espluga de Francolí Francesc Forès (1729-1742): el seu entorn simbòlic, productiu i commercial.” Revista de la Societat Catalana d’Història de la Farmacologia 4, 12: 13-24.
  8. Cowper, J. Meadows. 1885. Accounts of the Churchwardens of St Dunstan’s, Canterbury, A.D.1484-1580. London: Mitchell and Hughes.
  9. Cox, John Charles. 1913. Churchwardens’ accounts from the fourteenth century to the close of the seventeenth century. London: Metheun & Co.
  10. D’Aguanno Ito, Marie. 2024. Orsanmichele. A Medieval grain market and confraternity. Leiden: Brill.
  11. Devon, Frederick. 1837. Issues of the Exchequer; being a collection of payments made out of His Majesty’s revenue, from King Henry III to King Henry VI Inclusive, with an Appendix. London: Murray.
  12. Dugdale, William. 1658 History of St Paul’s Cathedral. London: Thos. Warren.
  13. Edwards, Dorothy. 2005. Early Northampton Wills. Northampton: Northampton Record Society.
  14. Fabbri, Lorenzo. 2002. “La “Gabella di Santa Maria del Fiore.” Il finanziamento pubblico della cattedrale di Firenze.” Reti medievali 3, 1: 1-37.
  15. Fabbri, Lorenzo. 2017. “Calimala e l’Opera di San Giovanni: il governo del Battistero di Firenze fra autorità ecclesiastica e potere civile.” In Il Battistero di San Giovanni: conoscenza, diagnostica, conservazione. Atti del convegno internazionale (Firenze, 24-25 novembre 2014), ed. Francesco Gurrieri, 73-85. Firenze: Mandragora
  16. Fahye Stanley, Joseph. 2011. From medieval corporatism to civic Humanism: Merchant and guild culture in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Florence. Unpublished PhD Thesis. State University of New York.
  17. Finiello Zervas, Diane. 1996a. Orsanmichele. Documents, 1336-1452. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini.
  18. Finiello Zervas, Diane. 1996b. Orsanmichele a Firenze. Modena: Franco Cosimo Panini.
  19. Finiello Zervas, Diane. 2015 “New documents for the Oratory of Orsanmichele in Florence, 1365-1400.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 78, 2: 292-313.
  20. Franceschini, Pietro. 1892. L’Oratorio di San Michele in Orto in Firenze: illustrazione storica ed artistica dedotta dai documenti. Firenze: Salvadore Landi.
  21. Giorgi, Andrea, and Stefano Moscadelli. 2005. Costruire una cattedrale. L’Opera di Santa Maria di Siena tra xii e xiv secolo. Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag.
  22. Goldthwaite, Richard A. 1982. The building of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore-London: The John Hopkins University Press.
  23. Gransden, Antonia. 2007. A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1182-1256: Samson of Tottingham to Edmund of Walpole: Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
  24. Henderson, John. 1997. Piety and charity in Late Medieval Florence. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  25. Jenkins, John. 2022. The Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Leeds: ARC Humanities Press.
  26. Kitchin, G. W. 1886. A consuetudinary of the fourteenth century for the refectory of the House of S. Swithun in Winchester. London: Elliot Stock.
  27. La Sorsa, Saverio. 1902. La compagnia d’Or San Michele ovvero una pagina della beneficenza in Toscana nel secolo XIV. Firenze: Trani.
  28. Marquès, Josep Maria. 1959. “La Iglesia de Gerona en la defensa de la ciudad durante los sitios de 1808 y 1809.” Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Gironins 13: 205-356.
  29. Meyers, A.R. 1996. English Historical Documents: 1327-1485. London: Routledge.
  30. Migliore, Ferdinando Leopoldo del. 1684. Firenze città nobilissima illustrata. Firenze: Stampa della Stella.
  31. Moroni, Marco. 2016. “Entre histoire économique et histoire des mentalités: aumônes et objets de dévotion dans la « ville-sanctuaire » de Lorette (XVe-XXe siècles).” In L’économie des dévotions. Commerce, croyances et objets de piété à l’époque moderne, ed. Albrecht Burkardt, 39-67. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.
  32. Motsianos, Ioannis. 2019. “Some Thoughts About the Use and the Making of Beeswax Candles in Byzantium.” In Glass, Wax and Metal Lighting technologies in Late Antique, Byzantine and medieval times, ed.Ioannis Motsianos, and Karen S. Garnett, 210-16. Oxford: Archaeopress.
  33. Nickson, Tom. 2020. “Light, Canterbury and the Cult of St Thomas.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 173, 2020: 78-99.
  34. Nilson, Ben. 2001. Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
  35. Sales i Favà, Lluís; Vela, Carles. 2022. “Llogar els ciris i revendre el refús. El consum de cera per a usos litúrgics a la Barcelona baixmedieval.” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 52, 1: 181-206.
  36. Sales i Favà, Lluís. forthcoming. “El consum de cera i mel a la Barcelona baixmedieval. El cas de l’Hospital dels Mesells.” Barcelona Quaderns d’Història.
  37. Sapoznik, Alexandra. 2019. “Bees in the medieval economy: religious observance and the production, trade, and consumption of wax in England, c.1300-1555.” The Economic History Review 72: 1152-74.
  38. Sapoznik, Alexandra. 2021. “Bees in the medieval Maghreb: Wax, honey and cross-cultural trade in the Western Mediterranean.” Medieval Encounters 27: 434-55.
  39. Sapoznik, Alexandra. forthcoming. “Beekeeping in England: Landscape and land use in the high and later Middle Ages.”
  40. Shaw, James, and Evelyn Welch. 2011. Making and marketing medicine in Renaissance Florence. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi.
  41. Snape, R.H. 1968. Monastic Finances in the Later Middle Ages. London: Cass.
  42. Vincent, Catherine. Fiat Lux. Lumière et luminaires dans la vie religieuse du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris: CERF.
  43. Wilson, Blake. 1989. “Music and Merchants: The ‘Laudesi’ Companies in Early Renaissance Florence.” Renaissance and Reformation 13, 1: 151-71.
  44. Woodruff, C.E. 1936. “The Sacrists’ Rolls Christ Church Canterbury.” Archaeological Cantiana 48: 38-80.
  45. Zazzeri, Roberta. 2003. Ci desinò l’abate: ospiti e cucina nel monastero di Santa Trinita: Firenze, 1360- 1363. Firenze: Società Editrice Fiorentina.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Pages: 455-574
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2024 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2024
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2024 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Wax, cash and the mass. Making candles affordable in late medieval economies

Authors

Alexandra Sapoznik, Lluís Sales i Favà

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0.27

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Mezzi di scambio non monetari. Merci e servizi come monete alternative nelle economie dei secoli XIII-XVIII / Alternative currencies. Commodities and services as exchange currencies in the monetarized economies of the 13th to 18th centuries

Editors

Angela Orlandi

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

592

Publication Year

2024

Copyright Information

© 2024 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0347-0

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0346-3

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0347-0

eISBN (xml)

979-12-215-0348-7

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

124

Fulltext
downloads

151

Views

Export Citation

1,347

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,421

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 380 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations