Item, a playne aulter cloth’ Mked wt sylke, in the Middis or lorde beyng in the sepulcre, in lenth’e iiij elles & qt.
The item above is listed in an incomplete inventory dated about 1523, from the Church of St Mary at Hill. It was published among a group of medieval inventories of the church, under the title “The Medieval Records of a London City Church: St Mary at Hill, 1420-1559,” in 1905, and is transcribed at british-history.ac.uk. Several inventories from churches around Britain still exist, such as those of Glasgow, Exeter and Reading, as well as numerous, often royal, household inventories, and textiles of various kinds feature prominently in all of them. Sadly, these descriptions are often all that remain of what must have been extensive collections, in wool, linen and silk, variously embroidered, “paynted” or “stayned,” of different sizes and for different purposes. Many must have been very costly.
The earliest inventory of the collection from St Mary at Hill is from 1431, shortly after the death of Henry V. Numbers of copes and vestments are listed, individually and in groups, as well as “xxj auter clothis of lynnen.” About seventy years later another inventory lists the altar cloths individually, describing their decoration and size. A few examples are:
“ffirst, an Awlter cloth’, diaper, hole & sounde, conteynyng in length’e iij yardes di., In Breede j ell’ with’ iij pt Blew Rayes at the one ende.
Item, an Awlter Cloth’e, diaper, conteynnyng in length’e iij yardes di., In Breede j ell’ with iiij Blew Rayes at euery ende of the saide cloth’.
Item, a cloth’e of ffyne diaper, crosse werke, content in length’ v yardes quarter, in Breede j ell’, & the one ende fasid oute longe.”
These cloths are all “diaper” which could mean a herringbone weave, whose beam-lifting pattern on the loom was regularly reversed so that the overall effect is one of diamonds rather than zig-zags. They are all one ell wide (“in Breede [breadth] j ell”) and from three and half to five and a quarter yards long (“in length’e iij yards di” (three and a half yards) to “v yardes quarter” (five and a quarter yards). This is about 114cm wide and between 320cm and 480cm long. The ones described above were fringed with some kind of blue decoration, but others were embroidered with silk. The one from the 1523 inventory is the only one described here as bearing the figure of Our Lord as he lay in the sepulchre but at around this time, the reign of Edward V, hundreds of inventories were being drawn up, formally recording the confiscation of church impedimenta superfluous to the new, Protestant, celebration of the liturgy, and in them, hundreds of textiles are mentioned and variously described, including altar cloths, necessarily long and thin, like the Shroud, and coverings, decorations and other cloths associated with the Easter Sepulchre. Although they are often described as “paynted,” some times with “saints” or “the passion” or “the resurrection,” none are sufficiently explicit to be claimable as similar to the Shroud of Turin.
It has often been remarked upon that although inventories and other lists and descriptions of furnishings feature painted linen cloths in abundance, the number that remain to us today is vanishingly small. Most of what’s left of the “stayned” cloth consists of shreds of block-printed fabric, usually with symmetrical designs of birds and stylised branches, presumably used more as wall-paper than for a specific purpose. Of all the painted banners, flags and hangings, altar-cloths and ceremonial vestments, few indeed remain, and each is sufficiently different from the others that general principles of design or manufacture are often difficult to derive.
Church Art Historian Allan Barton, on his blog Medieval Art, has an essay on “‘Stayned’ and ‘Peynted’ Textiles.” He mentions only three “from a church context” still extant: two banners, from Gdansk, Poland and Växjö, Sweden almost opposite each other across the Baltic Sea, and a single example from Britain, a corporal case from Hessett in Suffolk, about 20cm square, dated about 1450, with a head of Christ on one side and a paschal lamb on the other, within decorative borders. The outlines are very clearly delineated, but the shading is quite subtle, the face of Christ in particular, in red monochrome. Another interesting example, but from a hundred years later than the Shroud, is the Pavement of Narbonne, four times as long as wide (but less than three metres), and painted in exquisite detail in black (oak-gall) ink on silk.
Little by little, the edges are closing in on an approximately Shroud-shaped hole in History, which will eventually fit it so precisely that it will be impossible to deny its medieval provenance, but for the moment, the hunt goes on.
Stephen Jones is indeed a prominent and persistent Shroud commenter, and one convinced that the Shroud image is a “perfect negative.” However, he is reluctant to engage in any debate, so I do not engage with him. A more popular peddler of sindonological inaccuracy is Robert Spitzer of the Magis Centre (although the onset of blindness has reduced his public prominence recently), and I have communicated with them a couple of times, albeit to rather limited effect. At least he no longer claims that the radiocarbon dating was carried out on a single thread, and resulted in a 15th century date!
So, in answer to “Why bother trying to win over” Stephen Jones, I can only say “Why, indeed? I certainly don’t.”
Afterthought:
Stephen E.Jones currently writes:
“Thus, ever since the dramatic discovery – from the first photograph of the Shroud taken in 1898 by photographer Secundo [sic Secondo] Pia – that the image is a photographic negative, its secrets have slowly yielded to further investigation.”
http://theshroudofturin.blogspot.com/2021/07/shroud-of-turin-news-may-june-2021.html
What could be worse than the above kind of pseudoscientific nonsense – emanating as it does from a long-term “Shroudie” Flat-Earther?
Since when has a photograph of a negative tone-reversed image (e.g. acquired by contact, similar say to a brass-rubbing) meant that it too was acquired by photography in the first instance?
Why bother trying to win over the likes of Stephen E. Jones when he uses his longstanding website to mouth this kind of mindless pro-authenticity twaddle, year after year, decade after decade?
Life’s too short to go holding an opponent’s case in permanent (or even semi-permanent) pause mode, Hugh.
There comes a time when one is entitled to arrive at (and FORCIBLY STATE) one’s final conclusions, based on one’s lengthy deliberations.
I say that mind-fixated advocates of Shroud authenticity are, and/or have been, for the most part, pseudoscientific time-wasters.
They start with their end-message, then proceed to clutch at any straw within sight, attempting to buoy up their oh-so-slender case, maintaining they have hit upon solid supportive evidence.
I’ve said what I wanted to say, and will now leave it there, if that OK with you…
Defer? No, you’ve lost me there.
However, should you be interested in the ‘Flat Earth’ debate, you will not find that it is resolved simply by telling your opponents, or asking them to admit, that they’re wrong. The same will be true of any other debate, either within or way outside the margins or rationality. Did Aliens build the pyramids? Were the moon-landings faked? Is the world flat? Is the world six thousand years old? Is the Shroud genuine? By all means walk away from any or all of these – I haven’t bothered with any but the last two – but if you choose to engage, then, as I say, drawing lines is unlikely to further your cause.
So, are we expected Hugh to defer to “Flat Earthers” unless or until, that is, we win them over to arguments based strictly on science, logic, commonsense etc etc? 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
Hi Colin,
I’m afraid I don’t think a bone of contention can be made to disappear either by announcing that you’ve won and the discussion is over, or by asking your opponents to agree that they’ve lost. You have to gradually and convincingly – convincingly to them, that is, not to yourself – show them how your evidence is sound and theirs is weak, until they agree with you. Drawing lines is unlikely to be much help in that respect.
Would you agree, Hugh, that the pro-authenticity brand of ‘sindonology’, aka “Shroudology”, has finally ground to a halt?
It has nothing , absolutely nothing new to say – unable to back up or reinforce previous claims for ‘miraculous imaging’ at instant of biblical Resurrection …
It’s time, I say, for pro-authenticity sindonology to abandon its long-protracted claims – to accept that it has lost its case.
Let’s draw a line, I say , under claims that the TS is of 1st – as distinct from 14th century origin!
By the same token, some folk seem to think helicopters were invented in 1924 or thereabouts.
They need to do their homework. They – or something of comparable dimensions , markings etc – were whizzing round the skies 30-40 years earlier.
Sure, they may have been given obscure names like gliiiders or, later on, helliscopters, thanks to differing in minor details like fixed wings, rotors, olde worlde semantics etc.
But let’s not overlook one crucial detail: they were what we now call “helicopters” flying their entranced passengers hither and thither, regardless of precise era. All to a man or woman were bewitched, bewildered and bemused by what they saw out the cockpit window.
Yes, little by little, the edges are closing in on yet another chapter of pie (sorry, fly) in the sky history … 😉