Lanterns of the Dead

Pierced with small openings at the top, a light was exhibited at night to indicate the position of a cemetery, hospital, or leper colony.

These lanterns were originally constructed to warn passers-by of the danger of infection, as well as to illuminate cemeteries where it was feared that repenting souls, ghosts, and criminals could hide.

These towers were usually circular, with a small entrance in the lower part giving access to the interior, so as to raise the lamps by a pulley to the required height.

One of the most perfect in France is that at Cellefrouin (Charente), which consists of a series of eight attached semicircular shafts, raised on a pedestal, and is crowned with a conical roof decorated with fir cones; it has only one aperture, towards the main road.

A tradition which is most strongly associated with the Middle Ages, a new lantern of the dead constructed in the Romanesque style was completed in 2021 near Lublin in Dębowka.

[6] It is said to have been built after a visit of the abbot in the city, in 1147, possibly by Knights Templar as would prove a sculpture on the tower representing a horse and two Crosses pattée.

[7] Besides, "Saracen chimneys" (Cheminées sarrasines) are a typical local architecture feature of Bresse, a region in Eastern France.