cresset
A metal cage, basket or cup with fire in it, used for various purposes: — A metal cup, suspended from or attached to the top of a pole and filled with burning pitch etc., used as portable illumination.
historical
Of Starry Lamps and blazing Creſſets fed ¶ With Naphtha and Aſphaltus yeilded light
A metal cage, basket or cup with fire in it, used for various purposes: — A small furnace or iron cage to hold fire for charring the inside of a cask, and making the staves flexible.
We reach'd the lofty turret's base, our eyes / its height ascended, where we mark'd uphung / two cressets and another saw from far
1805–1814, Dante Alighieri, Henry Francis Cary (translator), The Divine Comedy, "Inferno", Canto VIII
Where it comes from
Inherited from Middle English cresset, from Old French crasset, cresset (“sort of lamp or torch”); perhaps of Old Dutch or Old High German origin, and akin to English cruse and/or French creuset (“crucible”), the latter being from Gallo-Roman Vulgar Latin *croceolus.
Adapted from the Wiktionary entry cresset (CC BY-SA 4.0).