The following 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 cavalcades 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 shroud, offered him in generosity.” The cardinal complies by issuing an indult, circumventing the episcopal 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: Marguerite 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.