From the 14th until the 17th centuries, brass candlesticks appeared in all but the most prosperous houses, and were made in forms peculiar to the material.

Socketed candlesticks made their appearance in the late 13th century and thereafter became relatively common, replacing the earlier pricket form, at least for domestic use. The earliest sockets were polygonal in cross –section. By the 15th century they were round. At first, two vertical apertures opposite each other were cut into the sides if each socket, in order to facilitate the extraction of the burnt-out stub. As the production of cheap tallow candles became more sophisticated the size of these apertures became correspondingly smaller. Again, by the 15th century, these apertures tended to be horizontally cut. By the second half of the 16th century the apertures were small circular holes, until finally in the 18th century they disappeared altogether.

The form of stem and the base of the late medieval candlestick is the result of a complicated interplay between two typological currents. The first type naturally evolved from the simple European pricket candlestick, where the shaft is supported on three legs. The second type originated in the Near East. As early as the 13th century the characteristic Near Eastern brass candlestick had a high cylindrical or slightly conical base surmounted by a flat circular wax pan and a short circular stem. These were introduced into Europe by the Moslem community in Venice from the 14th century. They account fort the high bell-shaped bases which appear on many Northern European and Saracenic candlesticks during this period. Broadly speaking the development of the base can be attributed to foreign influence, while the stem is largely European in origin. But one must be careful about taking this distinction too literally. The gradual elongation of the stem with an increasingly complicated range of knops and balusters initially appeared on Saracenic examples.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, an interesting variation was the replacement of the conventional shaft with a model of a human figure in contemporary dress; the outstretched arms supporting either a socket or a pricket with a drip tray immediately underneath (centre).

By the middle of the 17th century, the drip tray was becoming increasingly distant from the foot. The unmistakable trumpet-shaped candlestick (right), cast in two sections with its drip pan appearing half way up the column, is an example of this. The body is hollow cast and thus the corrugations serve to strengthen the shaft. The nozzles at the top were usually detachable and were necessary to prevent the candle falling into the shaft as the wax melted. The trumpet-shaped stick is thought to be English while the ‘collar’ candlestick (second from right) cast in solid brass in three and sometimes four separate sections was immensely popular in the Low Countries until the early 18th century. It was a supremely practical design being sufficiently heavy to sit securely on rough oak tables and yet eminently suitable to be carried around the house as required. The high drip pan protected the hand from hot melted wax.