Circa 8th-10th century A.D. Substantial cross pattée with pierced lobes to the vertical arms, each end provided with a link and hook; lateral arms pieced to accept similar links; intended for the suspension of polycandela multiple-candle chandeliers. 1.12 kg, 55.5 cm including hook (31 3/4 in.).

Ex Surrey, UK, collection of a gentleman, 1960-2000s.

In 563 A.D., Paul the Silentiary visited Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and described the wondrous lighting effects, ‘Thus is everything clothed in beauty…no words are sufficient to describe the illumination in the evening: you might say that some nocturnal sun filled the majestic church with light.’ The church was lit by polycandela, an early type of candelabra that held glass oil lamps rather than candles. The lamps were either conical or shaped like round bowls with an elongated stem attached beneath. Amidst the burning of incense and the chanting of prayers, the flickering light must have helped to inspire pious devotion. Contemporaries certainly attest to this feeling and among the surviving accounts, that of Arculf, Bishop of Gaul, is particularly affecting. In 670 he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and visited the Church of the Ascension, ‘…to the customary light of the eight lamps…on the night of the feast of the Lord’s Ascension it is usual to add innumerable other lamps; and under the terrible and wondrous gleaming of these, pouring out copiously through the shutters of the windows, all Mount Olivet seems not alone to be illuminated, but even to be on fire, and the whole city, situated on the lower ground nearby, seems to be lit up.’