Archaeological Views: To Titillate or to Teach?

My wife and I recently visited an exhibition, or rather three exhibitions in one, in Beaune, the elegant wine capital of Burgundy in the heart of France. Entitled “The Treasures of European Cathedrals: Liège to Beaune,” it was put on at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Hôtel-Dieu and the Collégiale and contained a superlative collection of altar ware, reliquaries, paintings, tapestries, liturgical garments, jewelry and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia from Christian centers throughout Western Europe. The quality of materials, standards of workmanship and sheer ostentation of these trappings of religious observance in the Roman Catholic cathedrals and monasteries of Western Europe from the 7th to 19th centuries gave some idea not only of the wealth of the church, which the Reformation may have reacted against but seems not to have dented, but also of what has miraculously escaped wars, natural disasters and theft over the past 1,200 years.