Oiled linen makes more sense to me. Oiled brown paper was used for window panes in the 18th and 19th centuries. Oil will make the linen more see through by keeping the material wet. Wax on the other hand will clog the holes in the linen.

The weight of linen should be as light as possible, as this would allow the most light to pass through.

The wax could only be bees wax. a linen source

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Actually, wax makes more sense to me than oiled linen for this purpose. Oiled linen would be flammable, wouldn't it? And these pieces of linen would be surrounding an open candle flame. I'm not sure how transparent the lantern panes were expected to be. The Mary Rose lanterns apparently all had horn panes. The linen would have to be comparable to horn in translucence, not glass. (I don't think glass was commonly used until later.) While fine linen is the most translucent, that's assuming that translucence was the main consideration for people making and using the lantern. Heavier but loosely woven linen would still allow some light to pass through but would be more durable, cheaper, and perhaps more resistant to drafts and wind.

The waxed linen wold be about as flammable as the oiled paper. I hadn't heard of this method before, it is very interesting. I don't think it would have been more economical than horn, both would have been readily available and inexpensive. It would be interesting to wax some linen and stretch it over a frame, and put a candle behind it and then compare it to a horn pane and see if there is any advantage to either method.

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Not of it was dried oil, ie linseed with a lead drying agent (litharge). If a damp and not dried oil, the volatiles would be emitted for too long.

When reading 'oiled' it might be useful to think thick gloopy boiled linseed oil with possibly the addition of rosin (makes it a varnish then).

As per the AA response, what might be a 'lantern' may be something else.

But oiled and waxed linens were used to make fenestrals.

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Did they use those star-prisms below deck at that date to amplify and project the light?

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JLH

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Gasoline readily gives off fumes. In liquid form, it will put out a match. However getting the match into the gasoline is the tricky part as it's ignition point is -45 degree F.

This same goes for all materials. Wood gives off fumes at 400 degrees and the fumes ignite at 450 degrees.

Wax and oil gives off fumes at a much lower temperature. I could only find 199 degrees F for parrafin wax which is quite soft.

Votive candles are hollow wax candles that allow the light to shine through. So yes you could use bees wax to make lantern panes. Just do not allow the candle to heat up the container. A candle flame has a temperature of 600 - 1400 degrees F. With a lantern, the top or lid will trap heat and raise the temperature.

Like gasoline, you can put out a match in oil. Oil needs much higher temperatures to give off fumes, making it much safer.

Now comes the bad news.
The thinner you make an item, the more readily it gives off fumes when heated. This is because the heat quickly passes through it and warms both sides. So when fabric (which gives off fumes when heated and therefore will ignite) is coated in wax or oil (which also give off fumes), you are lowering the temperature that is needed to ignite the fumes, as you are creating a larger area that is easier to heat.

So to sum up. If you had an open top lantern that would keep the temperature down, you could use oil or wax to make the cloth transparent. However both oil and wax would attract dust. Bees wax was expensive at the time. Olive oil or oil from animal fats would work well I should think but some will go rancid.

Various ignition temperatures

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Wax does seem an odd one as it is by nature soft, so unless there was some other treatment to the cloth (even then it wouldn't reduce the fumes from the wax) I would steer clear, unless the flame source is far enough away that it does not create fumes.

Flittie, re the Trinidad lantern, it could also be possible that oiled parchment was used for it.

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I'm Spanish... if you can get an inkling on what full the expression in Spanish was, I can try to search for more information, and see if any other translations are possible.

I just tried a search on the obvious term for waxed, "encerado" and got 2 hits from the 1400s, both referring to waxed cloth:

1. "deuen ser cerradas con vedrieras o con lienço encerado" (they must be closed with glass or with waxed linen).
They're talking of windows in times of contagious disease. I enclose the full text as given out by the database at the bottom of the message.

2. "& las ventanas con vidrio: o con paño encerado: porque entre la luz / & no el aire podrido." (and the windows [closed] with glass, or with waxed cloth, so that the light may enter and not the putrid air.)

Searching for "ençerado" (the expected variant spelling) gives 8 more hits, also from the 1400s. All appear to refer to waxed thread to dental surgery, except for one waxed cloth that is wrapped around some parchment.

A similar seach on CORDE for the period 1400-1650 leads to a good number of examples, but only one is mentioned in the context of a lantern. Again we have windows, surgery aids and medicines, parchments wrapped in waxed cloth, containers closed with waxed cloth...
The one about the lantern doesn't really clear much up... It's reference 3 below, which is from a sequel to Don Quixote. It seems to be talking of fantasy people, or perhaps oddly-costumed American natives. It's cites feathers and such and in the same breaths mentions "la madera que haze diáfano encerado a las linternas" (the wood that makes transparent waxed-thing for lanterns). Here I translate "encerado" as 'waxed-thing' because it's a noun. Other findings also drop the cloth/linen/whatever part and mention an encerado for a window, for example.
There's also some mentions to encerados surrounding the Christian military camp in the conquest of Granada.

I'm including (6) because it mentions "a box with its encerado". Maybe this is the kind of item they found on board this ship?

Hope that helps!!

Marianne

From http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/

1. NOTE TITLE: Tratado útil AUTHOR: Licenciado Fores DATE: [__] SOURCE: Electronic Texts and Concordances of the Madison Corpus of Early Spanish Manuscripts and Printings. Prepared by John ONeill. (Madison and New York, 1999). CD-ROM. (ISBN 1-56954-122-1). Hispanic Society of America: Textos y concordancias electrónicos del Corpus Médico Español
sana el ayre corrompido a ij pestilencial. despues destas las que son fechas fazia oriente son mejores & deuen ser cerradas con vedrieras o con lienço [ encerado. ] // // Rectificacion del ayre. / No se deuen leuantar en este tiempo mucho de man~ana antes quel sol salga sino despues a lo menos media

2. NOTE TITLE: De epidemia et peste; Tratado de la peste. AUTHOR: Pietro de Tossignano; atribuido a Vasco de Taranta. DATE: [__] SOURCE: Electronic Texts and Concordances of the Madison Corpus of Early Spanish Manuscripts and Printings. Prepared by John ONeill. (Madison and New York, 1999). CD-ROM. (ISBN 1-56954-122-1). Zaragoza Pablo Hurus 1494-08-15.
& confuerta el coraçon. No vaya por la villa: mas occupe se en algo dentro de casa conlas puertas cerradas: & las ventanas con vidrio: o con paño [ encerado: ] porque entre la luz / & no el aire podrido. Por consiguiente esquiue se qualquier fedor: & acresciente se tempradamente buenos

From CORDE (http://corpus.rae.es/cordenet.html):

3. - ¿Y qué avemos de her -dixo Sancho- nosotros con essa Cu? ¿Es alguna joya de las que avemos de lo traher de las justas?

- No -replicó don Quixote-; que aquel Cu es un plumaje de dos relevadas plumas, que suelen ponerse algunos sobre la cabeça, a vezes de oro, a vezes de plata y a vezes de la madera que haze diáfano [Anterior]encerado[Siguiente] a las linternas, * llegando unos con dichas
Página I, 86
plumas hasta el signo Aries, otros al de Capricornio y otros se fortifican en el castillo de San Cervantes. *

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AÑO: 1614
AUTOR: Fernández de Avellaneda, Alonso
TÍTULO: Don Quijote de la Mancha
PAÍS: ESPAÑA
TEMA: 12.Relato extenso novela y otras formas similares
PUBLICACIÓN: Martín de Riquer, Espasa-Calpe, S. A. (Madrid), 1972

4. y me los envió á Madrid en una caja guarnecida tambien con su encerado
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AÑO: c 1594
AUTOR: Garibay, Esteban de
TÍTULO: Memorias de Garibay
PAÍS: ESPAÑA
TEMA: 19.Memorias y diarios
PUBLICACIÓN: Pascual de Gayangos, Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid), 1854