The Consecration/Sanctus candle

"Candle Mass" ... Like me, I expect that many readers have been intrigued by medieval illustrations showing the Server, "clerk", at Low Mass lifting up two candles. 

Jungmann does not notice that the custom was, at least in England, to raise two candles. He writes: "The consecration candle, from which in many places the Sanctus candle developed, was originally intended to be lighted and lifted aloft by the deacon or the Mass-server at the early Mass, when it was still dark, ut corpus Christi ... possit videri. It was lit at Hanc igitur or sooner, or extinguished after Communion. Hence it turned into an expression of veneration for the Blessesd Sacrament."

It is interesting to recall problems which could exist before modern lighting and heating became general. At Lancing, the inventories listed a pomme, silver and apple-shaped with a screw-on top, into which hot water could be poured, so that a celebrant could keep his hands from going numb on the coldest mornings.