Six years ago I plunged into my research on the Shroud of Turin with enthusiasm and zeal. The science advocated in videos and Catholic seminars was stunning: the burial cloth of the Messiah, scientific, visual proof of the moment of Resurrection — of the central tenet of the Christian faith. It was remarkable…its very own Gospel.
I was convinced that given all of this remarkable evidence it should not be too difficult to trace the Shroud from medieval France to the early Christian community in Jerusalem.
In due time, as research progressed, when night became morning day after day, year after year, I remembered my Yeats:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
When looking at where the Shroud emerged in the historical record, c. mid-14th century in Champagne-Burgundy, I found some amazing connections. For it was at the same general area as the Shroud’s “discovery” where:
- The call for crusade was summoned by Urban II, himself born only 60 miles from Troyes, a crusade with the singular objective to reclaim the Holy Sepulcher for Christendom.
- The Knights who formed the Order of Templars (Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon), also obsessed with the Holy Sepulcher.
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the Templars’ spiritual director and from a family who patroned the Templars, quietly influenced Christendom with their spirituality and asceticism. It should be noted that among the relics in Citeaux, the original house of the Cistercians, was a “bleeding linen burial shroud” kept in the high altar reliquary along with other Passion relics. See here. [I have been in touch with the paper’s author (while becoming, for a time, quite good at reading and writing French during my research).]
- Where the Gothic cathedrals first rose beyond human imagination.
- Where poets like Chretien de Troyes told tales of the Holy Grail.
- Where the future Pope Urban IV was born, Jacques de Pantaleon, who later instituted the Feast of Corpus Christi and was taken with an icon, the Holy Face of Laon. [My article on this: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/11/07/shrouded-connections-serbia-the-shroud-and-the-holy-face-of-laon/]
This was the milieu of the time in which the Shroud emerged in the historical record.
And that was just in eastern France.
There was more.
It was an age of travels — pilgrims to the mysterious Byzantine east, to Jerusalem, to trails like the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrims shared icons, pilgrims badges, stories of healings and miracles.
And if one couldn’t physically journey to Christianity’s most hallowed site, the Holy Sepulcher, then the Holy Sepulcher could come to you. All it would take would be a small donation.
The popularity of Christ’s face on cloth was huge at the time the Shroud emerged in tiny Lirey. It was dubbed the veil of Veronica. For the holy year of 1350, over a million pilgrims elbowed their way into Rome with a singular purpose — not to see the pope, but to witness the exposition of the relic of the volto santo, or sudario: the Holy Face of Christ. That was the big draw at the time in which the Shroud emerged in the historical record — the face of God.
But this was also a time of schism. Half of Roman Catholics were loyal to another pope than the one in Rome. Kings in those countries prohibited their faithful from venturing to Rome or other places under interdict. So if the Veronica was so popular in Rome, could it not be outdone by displaying not just the face of the Savior, but his whole body?
The Shroud was displayed in the church of Notre Dame de Lirey, a small, provincial church just south of Troyes. It was the fief of the lord of Lirey, Geoffroi de Charny. Charny’s grandfather was the well-known and respected friend of Louis IX, Jean de Joinville. Charny never made an indication he knew anything about the Shroud. The cloth was peddled by his son, Geoffroi II and later his granddaughter, Marguerite, who in old age, excommunicated and peripatetic, handed over the cloth to her kinsmen the Savoy. The canons of Lirey fought tooth and nail to keep Marguerite from taking the Shroud, but to no avail. Over the next five hundred years, the Savoy utilized the Shroud to their great advantage; they eventually became the monarchs of Italy. The last monarch left it to the Holy See in 1983.
None of this, however, revealed how the Shroud arrived in Europe after 1,400 years. The big clue as to the likely veracity of this linen is exactly that ongoing legal spat between the descendant of Geoffroi de Charny and the churchmen of Notre Dame de Lirey.
We have extensive documentation from Charny himself at the time he wanted to build his Lirey church. A few months before his capture at the hands of the English, in response to an April 16, 1349 petition by Charny, Pope Clement’s court approved Geoffroi’s request that upon his death his body be divided and dispersed in various locales. In a subsequent missive only ten days later from the Avignon court, however, Geoffroi seemed to have changed his mind. Now, he received approval for a new petition, for a cemetery on the church grounds for himself, his family, the church canons, and anyone who so wished.
Geoffroi’s desire was never realized — he was slain by Reginald Cobham protecting King Jean the Good while clutching the oriflamme at the Battle of Poitiers in the Hundred Years’ War on September 19, 1356 (one of 2,426 fallen that day). His body was first interred at the nearby house of the Grey Friars before being given a formal funeral fourteen years later by order of King Charles V, Jean’s son, at the church of the Celestines in Paris.
With no body or tomb of Geoffroi de Charny, how were the canons regular in Lirey to commemorate the founder of the church? And this is the rub: with the patron of the church dead, how was the church going to survive — i.e. stand out — among all the other churches, especially those with eye-popping relics, like relics of Lazarus in nearby Avallon or the Holy House of Loreto in Ancona, the purported house in which the Blessed Mother lived that was miraculously transported to Italy?
We have the memorandum from Bishop d’Arcis of Troyes indicating that his bishop predecessor unmasked the artist of the cloth who created it “by a clever means of paint.” Clerical authorities, including Avignon pope Robert of Geneva ordered that it must be clearly stated that the shroud object in Lirey was not the actual burial shroud of Christ, but a representation.
A burial shroud…of Christ. Commissioned by the canons after the death of the Lirey church founder, Geoffroi de Charny, when it was clear his body was left on the littered battlefield in Poitiers? A burial shroud to commemorate both the crucified Christ and the murdered Charny? The Shroud as pious commemoration of the dead Charny dying in the hope of the Resurrection while serving as visual catechesis of the Passion? There is a whole genre of commemorating the dead: drap mortuare, death masks, transi, memento mori, funeraie, as there is with commemorating the Crucified: signa rememorativa, arma Christi, imago pietatis, heilige grab, andachtsbilder.
Moreover, an imprint or impression of Christ’s body, instead of an actual gisant (a recumbent effigy, of which recumbent Christs were huge in nearby Alsace), fits with the missing body of Charny himself.
An empty tomb in Jerusalem, an empty tomb in Lirey.
To take the idea that the Shroud was issued to memorialize Charny, a text from the sixteenth century relates how the canons at even that late of a date held an annual ceremony in the Lirey church marking the life of Geoffroi de Charny, followed by a feast. This reminded me of the Jesuits who consider July 31, the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, to be a special day with Mass marked by a large feast.
What is very telling in this sixteenth century report is that the ceremony involves an ostention — a ceremonial act like an exhibition.
The canons employed a poêle in their commemorations…a poêle: a pall, a funeral pall — a drap mortuaire. What did the description mean that the canons “held the stove cords”?
In the past, holding the strings of the stove meant holding the strings attached to the funeral sheet that covered the coffin. Because the ‘ stove ‘, among other meanings, also designates the funeral sheet or the large piece of black or white cloth with which the coffin was covered during funeral ceremonies. (See “Draped Tombs”)
Would there be such a shroud in Lirey independent of Geoffroi de Charny’s 1356 death in Poitiers?
This trajectory aligns with the most ignoble way the supposed first-class relic was handled by Charny’s heirs: rebuffing court orders to return the cloth to Notre Dame de Lirey; enduring excommunication; unable to produce any documentation on the cloth before it became a provincial matter in the 14th-century; having to pass it off out of the family — notably, not back to Lirey or to church authorities but to laymen, the House of Savoy.
The “science” and other purported unique elements of the cloth have been dealt with in Andrea Nicolotti’s The Shroud of Turin (2019, Baylor UP). My own forthcoming book, The Fraud of Turin, explores the thoroughly fascinating spiritual and theological milieu in which the Shroud definitively emerged, 14th century France. That aspect of Christian tradition and history has been ignored in favor of circuitous arguments veering into pseudoscience and pseudohistory that does little to benefit the modern believer or person of goodwill from appreciating the actual historical context.
Here is a comprehensive timeline of documented events showing the controversy engulfing the presence of the Shroud, a controversy, ultimately, that amounts to nothing more than a provincial argument over a religious devotional object between canon regulars of a church and the family who founded it.
June 20, 1353 — Geoffroi de Charny, a knight in service to the king of France, obtains from King Jean II an annual rent of 140 livres for foundation of church at Lirey, his fief just south of Troyes.
July 1353 — Church at Lirey, Notre-Dame de Annunciation, is founded. Robert de Caillac is dean of the church, with a staff of four canons. The Act of Foundation makes no mention of a shroud.
January 30, 1354 — Charny petitions for church at Lirey to be granted collegiate status by Pope Innocent VI, including an increase in indulgences and number of canons.
August 3, 1354 — Pope Innocent VI grants indulgences.
Circa 1355 — According to 1389 memorandum by Pierre d’Arcis, bishop of Troyes, sometime this year the Shroud is introduced in the Lirey church and displayed to pilgrims. It does not state how the cloth arrived in the church. At some point prior to his death in 1370, however, Troyes bishop Henri de Poitiers imposes a ban on showings claiming the “cloth” was “cunningly portrayed” in “a subtle manner” which attracted many people deceived by a false relic replete with false miracle stagings. To Bishop Henri, that an image was on the cloth flew in the face of the Gospels having never mentioned one. Also, following an investigation undertaken by Henri’s orders, “it was even proved by the artist who had portrayed it that it was made by work of a man.”
June 25, 1355 — King Jean II bestows the port-oriflamme, the sacred banner of France, upon Geoffroi de Charny, the second time the knight received the honor.
May 28, 1356 — During the octave of Corpus Christi, Troyes bishop, Henri de Poitiers, formally affirms the Lirey church as a collegiate church and praises Charny on his faith and his success in establishing a “divine cult.” The episcopal letter does not, however, mention the Shroud.
September 19, 1356 — Defending King Jean II while bearing the oriflamme, Geoffroi de Charny dies at the battle of Poitiers.
November 1356 — Charny’s widow, Jeanne de Vergy, appeals to the dauphin, Charles V, to make grants formerly made out to her late husband to be changed to their son, Geoffroi II, still a minor.
1358–1359 — Anglo-Navarrese troops terrorize and rampage the area around the Lirey church. The nearby Benedictine abbey of Montier-la-Celle is pillaged. According to Geoffroi II’s 1389 statement, the Shroud is moved to a safe, hidden location during this English aggression phase of The Hundred Years’ War.
1362 — Now of age, Geoffroi II participates in his first military campaign, for the Count of Tancarville.
1370 — Troyes bishop Henri de Poitiers dies. That same year, Charles V relocates Geoffroi de Charny’s body from a Poitiers cemetery to the Abbey of the Celestines in Paris.
1373–1375 — Further aggression by English calvacades in the area around Lirey.
1377 — Pierre d’Arcis is installed as bishop of Troyes.
April 8, 1378 — Pope Urban VI is elected pope.
September 20, 1378 — French cardinals, opposing election of Urban VI, elect Robert of Geneva who takes the name Clement VII, inciting the Avignon Papacy and thus the Western Schism. With the blessing from Charles V of France, the Catholic kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Navarre, Joanna queen of Naples, Flanders, Scotland, Burgundy and Savoy support Clement.
Circa 1388: The Shroud returns to Notre-Dame de Lirey and is again exhibited.
Early 1389: Troyes bishop, Pierre d’Arcis, condemns the Shroud exhibitions at a synod in Troyes, specifically ordering all clergy in his diocese to not mention the Shroud whatsoever.
On or around April 6, 1389: Geoffroi II de Charny, in Sens, meets and appeals to Clement VII’s papal legate, Pierre de Thury, for approval to have a place reserved in the Lirey church for the Shroud. Geoffroi II only vaguely mentions his father “had a place made with reverence for a certain figure or representation of our Lord Jesus Christ’s sorud, offered him in generosity.” The cardinal complies by issuing an indult, circumventing the episocpal authority of Pierre d’Arcis. The Shroud is installed in a place reserved for it in the church, and pilgrims again return to Lirey.
Mid-1389: D’Arcis orders the Lirey dean, Nichole Martin, under penalty of excommunication, to cease exhibitions. Martin refuses, and is summarily excommunicated by d’Arcis. Dean Martin appeals to Clement VII.
July 28, 1389: Pope Clement VII, in a letter to Geoffroi II, confirms Cardinal de Thury’s indult, voiding d’Arcis’s excommunication on dean Martin, specifically mentioning that those displaying the Shroud must notate it as a “figura seu representatio” of the Shroud of Christ, that is, as a “figure” or “image” or “(re)presentation.”
Summer 1389: Geoffroi II appeals to King Charles VI for a royal safeguard, a kind of protection that would enable exhibitions to continue. In turn, an irate Pierre d’Arcis also appeals to Charles for intervention to stop the showings.
August 4, 1389: Siding with Bishop d’Arcis, parliament and king revoke the royal safeguard. Charles orders the bailiff of Troyes, Jean de Venderesse, to confiscate the Shroud and either relocate it to another Troyes church or elsewhere in custody of the king.
August 15, 1389: On the Feast of the Assumption, as canons prepare to showcase the Shroud, the procurator and sergeants of the king arrive at Lirey to claim the Shroud, bearing the king’s letter. The dean claims it is not in his power to turn over the cloth. The procurator demands the church treasury to be opened. The dean claims he had only one key to the treasury and did not have access to the other keys. As it was nearing lunchtime, a seal was placed on the treasury door, effectively marking the treasury and its contents inside as property of the king, even though dean Martin claimed the Shroud was not actually in the treasury at that time. The sergeants then leave empty-handed.
September 5, 1389: Jean de Venderesse, bailiff, assigns his first sergeant, Jean de Beaune, to deliver letters to the canons at the Lirey church.
September 6, 1389: Jean de Beaune goes to Lirey and announces the Shroud is in property of the king of France. de Beaune also goes to the castle of Lirey to inform Geoffroi II, but Geoffroi is not home.
August 1389-January 1390: Pierre d’Arcis prepares a memorandum for Clement VII describing the events of the Shroud at Lirey and the deceitful manner in which it is shown, from the days when his predecessor, Henri de Poitiers, is believed to have uncovered the artist of the Shroud to the modern ostensions of it, as we have seen. His main gripe is that those at Lirey who exhibit the Shroud do so under false pretenses that the Shroud in fact is the true Shroud of Christ, thus amounting to idolatry.
January 6, 1390: A bull from Pope Clement VII rejects the position of d’Arcis and authorizes ostensions of the Shroud, again stating that clear signage or announcement must be delivered “stopping any deception,” stating: “that the aforementioned figure or representation is not the true shroud of our Lord Jesus Christ, but a sort of depiction or painting made as a figure or representation of the shroud that is said to have been that of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.”
May 30, 1390: A final version of the bull is sent to its recipients. Some verbiage is corrected, for instance, the phrase above now reads: “that the aforementioned figure or representation they display not as the true shroud of our Lord Jesus Christ, but as a figure or representation of the aforementioned shroud that is said to have been that of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.” Clement also forbids clerics from exhibiting the Shroud in solemn liturgical dress so as to “remove any chance of error and idolatry.”
June 1, 1390: Clement VII grants new indulgences for pilgrims: a year and forty days, not to pay homage or venerate the Shroud, but to visit the Lirey church. Such granting is common for churches dedicated to Our Lady.
1390: Geoffroi II embarks on the Barbary Crusade in service of Philippe II the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who was fourteen and on the battlefield at Poitiers when Geoffroi de Charny died.
Around 1393: TMarguerite de Charny, daughter of Geoffroi II and his wife, Marguerite de Poitiers, is born.
September 16, 1394: Pope Clement VII dies.
April 18, 1395: Bishop d’Arcis dies.
September 25, 1396: Geoffroi II participates in the defeat at Nicopolis, the battle that likely took his life.
Around 1412: Marguerite de Charny marries Jean de Bauffremont. The marriage produces no children.
October 25, 1415: Jean de Bauffremont dies in the Battle of Azincourt.
Around 1418: Marguerite de Charny marries Humbert de Villersexel. The marriage produces no children.
July 6, 1418: To avoid English aggression, the Shroud and other relics from Notre-Dame de Lirey are ushered to Humbert de Villersexel’s estates in the Doubs Valley. A receipt with relics, including the Shroud, indicates the transfer. The Shroud is never returned to the canons of Notre-Dame de Lirey.
May 8 and 9, 1443: The Court of Dole rules the Shroud to be restituted to the Lirey canons. In this trial, Marguerite informs the court the Shroud was obtained in military combat by her grandfather, Geoffroi de Charny. Marguerite refuses to return the Shroud.
1446: Another trial is launched to recover the Shroud from Marguerite de Charny.
November 6, 1449: A proceeding with the Provost of Troyes from the Lirey canons to obtain the Shroud is held.
1452: Marguerite de Charny, who had been holding exhibitions of the Shroud in various cities, brings the Shroud to Chambery in Savoy territory.
On or around March 1453: Marguerite transfers the Shroud to her kinsmen, the Duke of Savoy, Louis I, and his wife, Anne of Cyprus. Interestingly, for a time Louis’s father was an antipope, the ill-fated Felix V. It remains in the Savoy family until 1983 when the Shroud formally becomes property of the Holy See.
1457: The ecclesiastical court at Besancon excommunicates Marguerite de Charny for failing to comply to court orders in returning the Shroud.
October 7, 1460: Still under the pain of excommunication, Marguerite de Charny dies, and with her, the direct lineage of Geoffroi de Charny.