Beyond belief | 27 August 2011

The subtitle of Treasures of Heaven is ‘saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe’. The key words here are medieval and Europe.

The subtitle of Treasures of Heaven is ‘saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe’. The key words here are medieval and Europe. There’s not much from England because we suffered the autocratic cleansing of the Reformation in the 16th century, and much of our native tradition of what was then dubbed idolatry was destroyed or swept away. And because our Church was reformed in this way, those of a C of E persuasion tend to be suspicious of relics and devotional aids. Our unadorned worship does not encourage the ritual veneration of bits of people, and our rational selves discredit the endless fragments of the True Cross (just how big was it?) or the numberless thorns that supposedly came from Our Lord’s crown. So it was in a spirit of healthy scepticism that I set foot inside the latest British Museum exhibition under Smirke’s great Reading Room ceiling.