Kamna,

Fascinating.

I'd say that the torches are tree boughs dipped in wax...slow burning and perhaps used during night time processions?

Also perhaps a form of purification...Celtic Beltane Fires comes to mind as does Passover.

As well, the end of Lent had so many pagan as well as Christian elements. Easter of course being one.

My instincts about this procession are tied to mummering...which was usually held pre-Xmas.

Same costumes and demands during a procession to the Lord's manor, often led by Death.

Scathing 'skits' or parodies enacted until the doors are opened and the food distributed to the hungry peasants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummering

There's still mummering in Philadelphia and NewFoundland.

see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummers_Parade

And in some sense this is also related to the Feast of Fools and the plays devoted to the changing of positions for one day - -the poor become the rich, the layman becomes the Bishop, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_Fools

Lasty, I think this is connected to the Egyptian celebrations surrounding the nothing days when the earth stood still from Dec. 21st to 24th. Commoners became scribes and priests and roles were reversed.

It's a kind of reminder to those in power: a king is nothing without his people and his people nothing without their king. (If the land is sick, the king is sick: from the Fisher King myth.)

So much of our celebrations are conflations: in particular our march from the countryside (the pays in French to païen or pagan) to the urban and the religious observances brought in from the forests to the cities.

Indeed, one cannot help but see the sacred grove brought into the cathedral than to look up at the oak girders.

Again, thank you so much for this article.