ABSTRACT
The increased public demand for medieval decor created a system of supply and demand based heavily on the purchase or theft of bibelots from museums, churches and other monuments. Proust's criticism of his contemporaries suggests that the dispersion of medieval art was particularly rampant in the years just before and after the 9 December 1905 law that officially separated Church and State in France, thus ending the state's fiscal support of religious ceremonies while calling for an inventory of the goods contained in formerly state-supported edifices. The law attributed ownership of houses of worship to the commune, the department or the state, depending on a number of criteria, including the provenance of funds used to build the structure and the date of its construction.363
