Longchamp and Lourcine: The Role of Female Abbeys in the Construction of Capetian Memory (Late Thirteenth Century to Mid-Fourteenth Century) 1

Isabella Stewart Gardner knew that the Emerald Necklace', a chain of parkland established by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1880s, would remain green and peaceful despite whatever the industrial growth of the future might bring. Mrs. Gardner better known to her contemporaries as Mrs. Jack' thus embarked on building the architectural collage known today as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, filled with an astonishing collection of artworks that the Gardner had acquired during their travels abroad and through their contact with important collectors and connoisseurs. This chapter examines a single tessera within the larger whole, a panel of stained glass fragments that were extracted from the ruins of war and preserved by Gardner in her museum. Due to their status as remnants of a medieval programme that is now destroyed, these fragments have generally been understood to have little more than sentimental value.