8 July 2021
In the heart of the Derbyshire Dales lies Haddon Hall – an incredibly intact late mediaeval courtyard house. Its kitchens feature a timber-framed wall covered by dozens of overlapping, tear-shaped, burn marks. Varying in height from just a few millimetres to several centimetres, some are very lightly scorched others are very deep indeed. They contrast vividly with the lighter coloured oak on which they are charred – making them highly visible. Their presence has been the cause of much enquiry from visitors and an interpretation panel notes:
‘A kitchen needed plenty of light, and evidence of how this was provided can be seen in the scorch marks on the panelling [sic] and beams [sic], made by pricket candles. A pricket is the name given to a small spike for holding a candle upright’
The logic of the explanation is compelling. During the mediaeval and early modern periods rooms were illuminated by naked flames. Given the widespread use of timber-framed architecture sometimes the wood got a little scorched. The marks are assumed to be a physical manifestation of such accidents.
Burn marks are a very common feature in historic buildings. In my work as a buildings archaeologist I encounter them very frequently. The earliest identified marks have been dated to the later thirteenth century, with the latest known example coming from the mid-nineteenth century (Fearn 2017, 102-09; Wright 2016, 11, 25, 26). The technique of dating burn marks is both complex and beyond the remit of this blog – for the specifics I recommend consulting Dean & Hill 2014, 10, 12-13.
The phenomenon of burn marks certainly has a lengthy chronology, but have they traditionally been interpreted correctly as the result of unattended candles, tapers or rushlights?
Experimental Archaeology
For a long time, the explanation given at Haddon was widely accepted. However, close inspection of burn marks at sites, including Haddon, has revealed precious little physical evidence to show how the lights were supported. The holes which were supposed to have been created by prickets are entirely absent. Equally, if burn marks truly were the result of unattended wicks, we should be finding them in locations where lighting would be necessary. Yet large numbers are located in some altogether unexpected places. At Holy Trinity Tattershall one is located on the rear of a door. Buckden Towers has a burn mark on the exterior of a window shutter. The Queen’s House (Tower of London) has multiple examples on the upper face of a roof purlin. These are entirely impractical locations for placing light sources.
Questions over such anomalies led to ground-breaking experimental archaeology by vernacular architecture specialists John Dean and Nick Hill (2014, 1-15). They attempted to replicate the conditions in which tear-shaped burn marks could be made using only original materials available in the mediaeval and early modern periods. These included rushlights dipped in sheep fat and tallow candles with hempen wicks similar to those found at the wreck of the Mary Rose. By leaving numerous candles, tapers and rushlights to burn adjacent to, or mounted on, timber, they found that it is practically impossible to create the characteristic tear-shape accidentally. Instead, the unattended lights created linear burns or amorphous scorches and were liable to cause significant fires rather than discreet, contained, marks.
The results of Dean and Hill’s careful experimentation indicated that a very deliberate technique was required to create the characteristic tear-shape. The candle or taper was steadily held at a 450 angle so that the hottest part of the flame lightly touched the timber. The procedure almost instantly created sooting on the woodwork but, as time passed, the burn very gradually began to wear into the woodwork. After 5 or 10 minutes the flame created a burn a few millimetres deep at the base with a tapering above. A charred crust eventually formed which inhibited further burning and it was found that after scraping out the base of a burn site with a knife blade the burning could be reactivated. Whilst surveying a farmhouse in Worcestershire, I recorded striations within burn marks on a fireplace lintel which seemed to offer physical evidence of this practice. What is very apparent is that the creation of tear-shaped burn marks required time, patience and deliberate human intervention – they are unlikely to be the result of mere accident.
Folk Traditions
Alternative explanations for burn marks have varied. The folklorist, George Ewart Evans (1966, 36-37) suggested that they were created using a hot poker – the heat of which was tested on woodwork prior to plunging it into pint pots to create mulled beer (Dean and Hill’s research discounted this theory). Meanwhile, East Anglian oral traditions refer to burn marks as a protection against fire (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 60). It may be significant that so many burn marks are found on fireplace mantles as folk traditions relating to hearths and chimneys were once common (Lecouteaux 2000, 64-79). A recurrent theme was that of the Yule Log, kept kindled throughout the Twelve Days of Christmas and always lit from a charred fragment of the prior year’s remains (Evans 1966, 81-82). In the seventeenth century Robert Herrick explicitly linked the keeping of the ‘Christmas brand’ to evil-averting apotropaic practises in his poem Hesperides: ‘And where ’tis safely kept, the fiend / Can do no mischief there’ (Pollard 1898, 105). Throughout Europe, Twelfth Night traditions included the lighting of candles and fires to drive away evil spirits (Hoggard 2019, 96; Roud 2006, 18; Cosman 1981, 21):
And round about the house they go, with torch or taper clear,
That neither bread nor meat do want, nor witch with dreadful harm,
Have power to hurt their children or do cattle harm.
The connection between fire and protection from evil was central to these folk beliefs. Numerous writers, including Virginia Lloyd (2001), Timothy Easton (2012) and Matthew Champion, have raised the possibility that burn marks may have been created as part of apotropaic practices related to averting the perceived threat of evil or bad luck from buildings. Burn marks may have acted as a form of inoculation through sympathetic magic: scorching the wood lightly to avoid more deadly conflagration – literally fighting fire with fire. Brian Hoggard (2019, 94, 104) has drawn parallels with the customs surrounding ritual death – to break (or burn) something kills it and sends it into another, supernatural, plane of existence.
Catholics and Candles
Candles played a strong part in the rituals of the mediaeval Catholic mass. Candlelit processions were an essential aspect of Epiphany and Candlemas. The latter involved a ritual blessing of holy candles by the parish priest in which it was made explicit that they would have an apotropaic function: ‘wherever it shall be lit or set up, the devil may flee away in fear and trembling with all his ministers, out of those dwellings’ (Duffy 2005, 16). The implication here is that, after the service, the parishioners were free to take the holy candles home. It is not a big stretch to then suggest that they were used to create burn marks.
The perceived power of holy candles survived the northern European Reformation. As late as 1812, candles blessed by a priest on Candlemas were thought to have specific power over thunder, lightning and devils (Opie & Tatum 1989, 55; Brady 1812, 189). Furthermore, Matthew Champion has written very eloquently about how important candles were, both before and after the Reformation, to funeral services. They were placed around the body of the departed with the expectation that they would keep the forces of evil at bay. The placement of burn marks in buildings may well have been a domestic physical manifestation of such beliefs and practices.
Reformed Reinterpretation
Burn marks are also found in many buildings which can be confidently dated to the post-Reformation period. It may be that traditions, once intrinsically linked to a Catholic worldview, continued. Origins and earlier meanings were gradually forgotten or reinterpreted as a system of belief relating to the bringing of good luck and the aversion of bad luck. Although the understanding of burn marks evolved the perceived threat of evil lingered on. The early modern world was a time of great turbulence and social change. The population doubled, land enclosures led to unemployment and homelessness, food became scarce, wages fell and a significant gap emerged between rich and poor (Sharpe 2001, 35). In pre-modern societies there was a tendency to try and understand and manage such impossibly largescale societal problems by reducing them to more readily understood cause and effect. One of the most common coping strategies was to lay the blame for misfortunes on those who were perceived to be liminal, marginal, alien or othered. In the case of early modern England, this led to a substantial rise in accusations of witchcraft (James Sharpe 2001, 38-39).
To the early modern mind, the threat of evil was all-pervasive – an incarnate Satan was harnessing his minions to endanger the souls of the Christian faithful. Such beliefs were found throughout all levels of society and statutes in 1542, 1562 and 1604 specifically outlawed witchcraft in England (Sharpe 2001, 15-16). Inventively lurid tales of diabolical practices were spread far and wide through the mass media of the day – sermons, printed pamphlets and plays. Even crowned heads of state weighed in when James VI of Scotland published his witch-hunting manual, Daemonologie, in 1597 (reprinted 1603).
Although much of James’ book extolled the virtues of the pious life, as a mechanism to deter the threat of evil, his text does contain references to established folk beliefs. In particular, an oft-quoted passage describes the physical threat by evil spirits to buildings: ‘being transformed in the likenesse of a little beast or foule, they will come and pearce through whatsoeuer house or Church, though all ordinarie passages be closed, by whatsoeuer open, the aire may enter in at.’ James described a line of thought which maintained that spirits travelled through the air and would enter a building wherever there was a draft.
Surveys have noted a spatial correlation between burn marks and the drafty portals and liminal or darkened spaces of buildings (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 57; Hall 2005, 151; Easton 2012, 44-46). For example, burn marks can be found associated with doors at Helmsley Castle, Baddesley Clinton and Bramall Hall; windows at Buckden Towers and Bolsover Castle; hearths at Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans and Pendean (now at the Weald and Downland Living Museum); stairwells at Haddon Hall and the Queen’s House (Tower of London) and roof spaces at 34 Bailgate in Lincoln, The Vyne (Hampshire) and Magdalen College Oxford.
Fears of Fires
The widespread phenomenon of burn marks may be a physical manifestation of anxieties about the presence of evil or bad luck linked to the acknowledged protective power of candles against evil spirits. An extension of this view may be the point, noted during my own experiments, when a pale blue flame briefly forms on the charred timbers. In the minds of early modern people this moment might have been connected with the documented belief (as noted in the writings of Shakespeare, Milton, Defoe and Grose) that a blue flame indicated the presence of a spirit in the world (Opie & Tatum 1989, 53-54).
We have already noted the understandable fear of conflagration breaking out from the hearth. The passage from Daemonologie shows that this readily understandable physical fear could also be coupled to anxieties relating to the use of chimneys as portals into buildings by evil spirits. This may go some way to explaining why so many burn marks can be found on mantle beams. Various early modern European sources depict witches entering a building through chimneys or acting as firestarters, including St James and the Magician Hermogenes by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565) and the Compendium Maleficarum by Francesco Guazzo (1608). Meanwhile, the anonymous artist of Hort an new schrecklich abenthewr Von den vnholden vngehewr(Listen to new terrifying adventures of the sinful monsters) shows two witches plunging into chimneys, brooms held aloft, whilst other diabolical malefactors are torching a house. Demons were specifically thought to ‘tend fires, and burn houses and towns they rear winds, and blow down houses, steeples, and trees’ (Duffy 2005, 268).
Thunder and lightning storms, which could bring fire to a building, were regularly blamed on the forces of Satan and it was custom to ring church bells during tempests so that the noise would ward away the demons (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 66). All of these characteristics can be noted in the famous story of the hellish Black Shuck which reportedly terrorised the settlements of Bungay and Blythburgh during a storm in 1577. The north door of the latter’s parish church is said to feature the claw marks of the Hell hound. In reality they are burn marks. Here we see a confused tradition connecting the forces of Hell with marks that may originally have been created to ward such beasts away!
Magic and Medicine
Recourse to magic was a powerful trend in a society fearful of the effects of evil, sickness, personal disasters and environmental catastrophe. To counter this, practitioners of magic, known as cunning folk, offered their services for financial reward. Their art was usually an amalgam of folk remedies, written charms, biblical texts and printed works of medicine and astrology. Archaeological survey work can help us to understand that some burn marks may be related to such practices. Analysis of burn sites reveal that some are not found in marginal locations. Instead there are groups found on the wall studs of residential spaces including Gainsborough Old Hall, Holme Pierrepont Hall and Buckden Towers. Many of the marks are sited low down on the wall, suggesting that they were created by someone who was kneeling down, and we might imagine that they could represent prayers or healing rituals.
Additional theories can be put forward for the function of burn marks depending on their specific archaeological context. The ground floor of the Queen’s House at the Tower of London features an unlit space which may have been used as a prison cell. It is accessed from a corridor which leads to the basement of the Bell Tower – once the prison cell of Sir Thomas More. Later the building was used to hold Guy Fawkes over the four days immediately after his arrest in 1605. The ground floor room has numerous groups of burn marks on the interior frame of its doorway which might be reflective of the prayers of prisoners. Alternatively, they may represent purification by fire after the use of the cell during a time when the Tower was earning its grim reputation as a place of imprisonment, torture and execution (Wright 2017, 77-78).
Hands of the Creators
We have some clues towards the identity of those responsible for creating burn marks. At Baddesley Clinton and St Lawrence South Cove the tapered points of burns can be found facing downwards. They cannot have been created in situ and there is no evidence that the timbers have been reused or reorganised. It might be concluded that they were created during construction by the carpenters. We must consider that some burn marks could have been related to builder’s traditions connected to the safety and security of a structure deemed vulnerable to fire (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 62, 65).
In 2014, I was involved in the discovery of burn marks beneath the floorboards of Knole which were probably also created by carpenters. The timber framing of the second floor in the King’s Tower featured a number of horizontal burn marks on the bridging beam closest to fireplace. Dendrochronology demonstrated that the beam came from a tree which was felled during the winter of 1605-06 and construction work is documented to have taken place during the following spring and summer, probably under the direction of the master carpenter Matthew Banks. As the burns run horizontally, they could not have been applied in situ and the conclusion reached was that they were applied by carpenters during construction (Wright 2019a, 78).
It is admittedly very rare to be able to pinpoint the precise period at which burn marks were applied, even more so to be able to name individuals involved in the work, but such discoveries have been important in identifying the potential for burn marks to be part of building practices. During the Catholic mediaeval era the connection between builders and protection from fire may have been explicitly linked via the attributes of Saint Barbara – the patron of builders and engineers as well as a renowned protector against lightning and fire (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 68).
However, not all marks were created by craftspeople. At the Queen’s House (Tower of London), we can be fairly certain that two burn marks recorded within a relict mortice were not applied until after the corresponding tenon had been removed i.e. long after construction (Wright & Karim 2016, 93, 96). Elsewhere occupants may have been drawn to apply burns in association with structural features – in particular joints – as at Kelham where two post-mediaeval burn marks were found directly above the pegs of a mediaeval down brace jointed to a wall plate (Wright 2019b, 8).
Earlier research into burn marks proposed that they may have been the preserve of lower status individuals based on an observation that they were usually found in roof structures, services or agricultural buildings (Lloyd, Dean & Westwood 2001, 64). However, later work has demonstrated that they can be found throughout buildings of all social levels. Burn marks can be seen in the parlour of the Bromsgrove townhouse in the collection of Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings and in the bedchamber above the parlour at Bayleaf, the jewel in the crown of the Wealden Downland Living Museum. Even higher up the social scale is the example recorded by the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Medieval Graffiti Survey on the window shutter in William Cavendish’s bedchamber in the Little Castle at Bolsover.
Conclusions
The re-evaluation of burn marks in historic buildings, which has taken place during the last 25 years, has demonstrated that it is unlikely that they were created accidentally by unattended naked flames. Evidence is lacking for the attachment of lights to the timbers. Dean and Hill have constructively established that the characteristic tear-shape cannot be reliably created by accident. Instead, the practice requires a controlled and deliberate human behaviour.
Although burn marks may not have had precisely the same meaning throughout the mediaeval and early modern periods, it has been possible to show that the tradition spanned both eras. In the Catholic period blessed candles were vitally important in offering protection against the Devil. It is not a big step to suggest that those candles may then have been used in private, domestic, apotropaic rituals. Fears of evil, bad luck and fires continued throughout the early modern period and it is likely that the older traditions quietly persisted or were repurposed. Quite what an individual’s understanding of the practice was is difficult to ascertain. For many it may simply have been a private tradition, passed down as family lore, that was connected to bringing good luck whilst averting bad luck. Others may have had a more developed philosophy.
From the view of modern archaeology, it is worth noting that this myth has a rare aspect. Most stories about mediaeval buildings take an originally prosaic feature and offer a romanticised view. In the case of burn marks the truth is rather more interesting than the rather mundane myth…
References
Brady, J. H., 1812, Clavis Calendria Vol. I. Brady. London.
Champion, M., 2017, ‘Taper Burn Marks: Fighting Fire with Fire’ in Demon Traps, Spiritual Landmines and the Writing on the Wall: The Project Director’s Blog for the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey
Cosman, M. P., 1981 (1996 edition), Medieval Holidays and Festivals: A Calendar of Celebrations. Piatkus Books. London.
Dean, J. & Hill, N., 2014, ‘Burn marks on buildings: accidental or deliberate?’ in Vernacular Architecture Vol. 45. Vernacular Architecture Group.
Duffy, E., 2005 (2nd edition), The Stripping of the Altars – Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580. Yale University Press. New Haven and London.
Easton, T., 2012, ‘Burning Issues’ in SPAB Magazine. Winter 2012. Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. London.
Evans, G. E., 1966, The Pattern Under the Plough: Aspects of the Folk-Life of East Anglia, Faber and Faber. London.
Fearn, A., 2017, A Light in the Darkness – the Taper Burns of Donington le Heath Manor House’ in Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture. Kenyon College. Gambier.
Hall, L, 2005, Period House Fixtures and Fittings: 1300-1900. Countryside Books. Newbury.
Hoggard, B., 2019, Magical House Protection: The Archaeology of Counter Witchcraft. Berghahn. New York and Oxford.
Lecouteux, C., 2000 (Graham, J. E., 2013 trans.), The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices. Inner Traditions. Rochester and Toronto.
Lloyd, V., Dean, J. & Westwood, J., 2001, ‘Burn marks as evidence of apotropaic practices in houses, farm buildings and churches in post-medieval East Anglia’ in Wallis, R. & Lymer, K., A Permeability of Boundaries? New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion and Folklore. British Archaeological Reports. Oxford.
Opie, I. & Tatum, M., 1989, A Dictionary of Superstitions. Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Pollard, A. (ed.), 1898, Robert Herrick – The Hesperides and Noble Numbers Volume II. Lawrence & Bullen. London and New York.
Roud, S., 2006 (2008 edition), The English Year. Penguin. London.
Sharpe, J., 2001, Witchcraft in Early Modern England. Pearson Education. Harlow.
Wright, J., 2019a, ‘Ritual protection marks in the King’s Tower’ in Cohen, N. & Parton, F., Knole Revealed. National Trust. Swindon.
Wright, J., 2019b, The Fox Inn, Main Road & 4 Blacksmith Lane, Kelham, Nottinghamshire – Archaeological Statement of Significance. Triskele Heritage / Involve Heritage. Unpublished archaeological report.
Wright, J., 2017, ‘Cultural anxieties and ritual protection in high-status early-modern houses’ in Billingsley, J, Harte, J. & Hoggard, B., Hidden Charms – A Conference Held at Norwich Castle: April 2nd, 2016. Northern Earth. Mytholmroyd.
Wright, J., 2016b, The Old Laundry, Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent, TN15. MOLA. Unpublished archaeological report.
Wright, J. & Karim, A., 2016, Queen’s House and Bell Tower – A Level 2 and 3 Standing Building Survey. MOLA. Unpublished archaeological report.
About the author
James Wright is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who runs Triskele Heritage. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.
He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.
The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:
