The Stained Glass of Herkenrode Abbey

The sixteenth-century glazing from Herkenrode Abbey in Belgium constitutes the most significant body of Flemish stained glass in the world. In the early nineteenth century, an English aristocrat took advantage of the secularization of the monasteries on the Continent to purchase the abbey church’s glazing; glass from the abbess’s private chapel was acquired by another English aristocrat.

This account of the glazing, the result of a unique and fruitful collaboration between the Corpus Vitrearum in Great Britain and Belgium, has sections on the three locations in England where the glass is now located - Lichfield, Shrewsbury, and Ashtead - prefaced by a historical introduction on Herkenrode Abbey. It benefits from extensive research into artistic practice in the Low Countries (for art-historical context), draws on the rich documentation in the Lichfield Cathedral archives (for the glass’s reception in England), and presents the insights gained during recent conservation of the glass at Lichfield Cathedral (for the glazing’s execution and condition).

Yvette Vanden Bemden, University of Namur, Isabelle Lecocq, Royal Institute of Cultural Heritage, Brussels

Yvette Vanden Bemden is a researcher for the study of stained glass in Belgium for the publication of volumes of the Corpus Vitrearum. She is member and former president of the Belgian committee of the Corpus Vitrearum Belgique-Belgi� and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts
of Belgium.

Isabelle Lecocq is the chef de travaux at the Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique, Brussels, initially in the department for conservation/restoration, now in the Documentation Department - Art History Research and Inventory Unit. She is the Secretary of the Corpus Vitrearum Belgique-Belgi�;
Secretary of The Royal Academy of Archaeology of Belgium; and a scientific collaborator to the University of Li�ge (Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, Department of Historical Sciences. Art History and Archaeology of Modern Times).