Medieval galleries at the V&A

Much has been written about the new galleries (opened in December 2009). It was said in Painter's Post that "The death of Christianity is posing difficulties to curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Apparently, a vast majority of their European visitors, even Christian ones, don’t understand the displays in their Medieval and Renaissance Galleries… " - the link was to this article.

This curator's-eye video gives a different view.

Here are a few of my favourite things from these galleries. But first, a couple of pages from my sketchbook from the first "creative textiles" course I took at City Lit, in 1992 (after that, I was hooked). The topic was "medieval", and we spent a day at the V&A -(Coffee, applied in the cafe of course, not in the galleries, makes good "paint" for a background.)
This is the Limoges 13th century reliquary -St Catherine of Alexandria in prison - a small English alabaster, 15th century -A lovely ivory, for which I didn't note the details -
Candlesticks and an oliphant (ivory hunting horn) -
Tapestries -Glass -
Insights, like this treatise on carving - it was done with the bird held in mid-air, usually by young men -There are headphones with music etc, and various things to touch, including a mitten from a suit of armour.

And to give you an overview, here is just one of the Medieval & Renaissance rooms -