chapelle ardente

A chamber, catafalque, or hearse, lit with candles, for the lying in state of dignitaries and famous people. In Westminster Abbey dead kings lay in effigy at the crossing under elaborate canopies or ‘hearses’ supporting a multitude of candles. The effigies, carried at the funerals, represented the actual corpse.

Henry VII provided by his will that at his funeral a hearse should be set up with 100 tapers and four great candles in the lantern space, until the king's great chapel was finished. The hearse of Edmund Crouchback (Earl of Lancaster) had no fewer than 559 candles, an odd number which suggests that there was a single one at the apex. This custom is first recorded as occurring at the obsequies of the Frankish King, Dagobert I, in the 7th century.