THE MADNESS OF KING CHARLES VI
By 1395, the King of France was increasingly subject to bouts of mental disturbance. Three years previously he had suffered some unknown disease which made his hair and fingernails fall out, a few months after which, surprised on a military raid, he suddenly attacked his own men, killing four of them before he could be restrained, and the following year he had almost burned to death when a fancy-dress costume he was wearing at a masque caught fire. Aware of his mental deterioration, he permitted blood to be taken from a hole in his head, and ordered his servants to keep him away from weapons. Concerned that he might the victim of sorcery, he publicly begged his tormentors to kill him outright rather than prolong his torture. ‘Conventional’ medicine failing, assorted quacks came forward with magic spells, suggestions that ground-up pearls be added to the king’s meals, and a weird ritual involving twelve men tied to a large iron ring reciting incantations. At least four of these mountebanks were executed for their failure. Then recourse to the saints was made. The King went to pray at Mont St Michel in 1394, and in 1399, Louis de Sancerre, Constable of France, arranged for the Holy Shroud to be brought to Paris in the hope that it might affect a cure…
…from Toulouse, about as far away from Paris as you can get in France, but where this shroud had been entrusted by the Cistercian monks of Cadouin a few years previously, in 1392, to keep it away from the English who had occupied most of that part of France for fifty years, and who were ‘Urbanites,’ people who supported the Roman Pope Urban VI, rather than the French, Avignon, Pope Clement VII, who was supported by the Cistercians. The shroud was brought to Paris by the Abbot of Cadouin (the Toulouse house), the bishop of Saintes and members of Toulouse town council, arriving in mid-August. After the king had had the chance to pray in its presence for a few days, it was exposed for public veneration at the Cistercian ‘Collège des Bernardins’ until November. It had no effect on the king’s indisposition, but attracted very generous alms from the citizens of Paris. All this time the Shroud of Lirey was presumably being regularly displayed, but only, following Pope Clement’s injunction, as an imitation, and so unlikely to be anything like as efficacious as the real thing.
THE SHROUD OF CADOUIN-TOULOUSE
There were other fragments of burial cloths, of course, but the shroud of Cadouin-Toulouse, housed in its own chapel in the environs of the Monastery of Saint Sernin, was the only true, complete (verum et integrum) shroud of Christ, without any damage or depletion whatsoever (non laesum et sine diminutione quacumque), according to its owners.
There are sporadic records of a shroud in Cadouin from the early 1200s, and the monks themselves claimed they had had it for 300 years, but it does not seem to have had national significance (in spite of later hagiography detailing its importance as a pilgrimage centre) until it arrived in Toulouse, after detailed correspondence and a welter of legal documentation stipulating exactly what conditions it was to be kept in. The last half of the 14th century had seen the monastery at Cadouin almost destroyed under the ravages of the Hundred Years War, and many of the monks had fled. Its shroud seems to have become a bone of contention not so much between the warring armies as soldiers, but between their papal allegiances; and the Cistercians of Cadouin were ‘Clementines,’ following the Avignon Pope. There is no doubt that Pope Clement knew of their difficulties, and of their support, especially as Toulouse is relatively close to Avignon in the south of France. He almost certainly knew of the relic before the move as well, which may be a reason why he had refused authorisation of the shroud of Lirey a few years previously.
In Toulouse, the shroud, and the refugee monks of Cadouin who accompanied it (leaving only two back in the mother-house), were well looked after. The town council bought them a house, financed a chapel for the shroud, and promised to provide for them until the community could support itself. The shroud gained celebrity, devotion, and considerable financial support, and a new, larger and more elaborate chapel was built for it. Seeing its new popularity and worth, the remaining monks of Cadouin demanded it back in 1394, and delegations were sent to the King, Pope Clement, and the Cistercian mother house at Cîteaux for a determination. Eventually the decision was in favour of keeping it in Toulouse, with its monks-in-exile, where the income it generated could be used to help both the new foundation and the old monastery in Cadouin.
THE CHALLENGER
And then, in about 1400, another burial cloth turned up, in Carcassonne, only a day’s ride from Toulouse. At the subsequent trial, several witnesses claimed it had been in Carcassonne for as long as anyone could remember, and a register, dated 1397, lists 1636 adherents to a cult. How long it had really been there without attracting the ire of the monks of Cadouin is impossible to say, but in 1402, the Cistercian abbot, Bertrand de Deane, initiated a lawsuit against the Augustinians, not so much for having a relic, but for pretending it was a piece of the Cadouin-Toulouse shroud. The Augustinians rapidly backtracked, saying that although one of their friars had mistakenly said that in one of his sermons, it was not their claim, which was that their relic was cut from one of the other sacred linens (de aliis sindonibus mundis sive Sacris Sudariis fuerat semota) in the tomb at the Resurrection. That having been established in law, and a promise extracted that any income generated under the name of “Shroud of Cadouin,” howsoever collected, should be returned to the monks of Cadouin, then the Augustinians of Carcassonne were permitted to continue to exhibit their own relic unmolested.
Before coming to this decision, the Pope (now Benedict XIII) and the King, in two separate hearings, were subjected to a battery of accusations and justifications by the opposing factions. Neither side accepted that the other’s relic had any trustworthy provenance, and the Abbot of Cadouin declared that his shroud was the only burial cloth anywhere to have received pontifical approval (non existeret aliabi aliud oratorium de Sancto Sudario, quod fuisset roboris firmitate approbatum per sede appostolicam, praeter quam dictum Sacrum Sudarium de Caduino). Considering that the shrouds of Compiègne and Kornelimünster both had exactly that approval, and were considerably closer to Paris – and the king – than Toulouse, that was rather a bold statement; but it seems that while Compiègne and Kornelimünster (and later Besançon) were happy to possess one shroud among several that might have wrapped Jesus, exclusivity was important to Cadouin-Toulouse, for as long as they could claim it. Indeed, much of the abbot’s appeal against the Carcassonne relic was an attempt to have it quashed altogether, not just renamed.
PROOF OF AUTHENTICITY
Amongst all the accusations and counter-accusations, it is surprising that no physical description of the disputed relics appears, and it doesn’t seem that it was considered important. The claim that the Shroud of Carcassonne was cut from the Shroud of Caduoin-Toulouse could have been refuted before it came to court simply by noting that the former was silk and the latter was linen, but nobody seems to have noticed or cared. In the ‘authenticity’ stakes, what was important was clearly laid out like a kind of trump card game:
— how long have you had your relic?
— how important is the place where you keep it?
— how many miracles has it inspired?
— how many pilgrims does its attract?
— how many papal indulgences has it acquired?
The first two questions were evidently won by Cadouin-Toulouse, while the third stimulated a frantic cataloguing of miracles, with rather indecisive results on both sides. The Carcassonne monks could only rustle up miracles from the last year or two, while Cadouin produced a list going back to the year 1200, but the former claimed an average of eight per month, while the letter only had a few each year.
It is interesting to compare the claim of the Augustinians with that of the Lirey clergy fifty years earlier. Both had apparently ‘acquired,’ and recently promoted, a relic associated with the burial of Christ, which challenged other well-known and well-respected relics nearby (of Toulouse and Compiègne respectively), and which initiated a frenzied legal inquiry. By adjusting their claim, the Augustinians maintained the authorisation to display their relic, while, apparently, by sticking to exclusive authenticity, the Lirey clergy lost theirs.
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— Aimery Nadal, abbot de Saint Sernin, ‘Proces Verbal,’ c.1403, transcribed in Jean de Doat, Doat 64, Recueil d’Actes et Pièces Diverses Concernant la Ville et les Couvents de Carcassonne (1112-1642), c.1670 (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10035059d/f375.item.r=%22doat%2064%22)
— Idelette de Bures, ‘Charles VI: Sa Folie, ses Médecins, ses Traitements et le Religieux de Saint-Denis,’ Histoire des Sciences Médicales, Vol XXXIV, № 1, 2000 (https://numerabilis.u-paris.fr/ressources/pdf/sfhm/hsm/HSMx2000x034x001/HSMx2000x034x001x0029.pdf).
— Michel Roy, ‘Le Suaire de Cadouin: Ancêtre Des Neuroleptiques?’ http://www.hispanidad.fr/Docu/Littera/Cadouin2016.pdf
— Michelle Fournié, ‘Le Saint Suaire de Carcassonne au Moyen Âge,’ Bulletin de la Société d’Études Scientifiques de l’Aude, 2010
— Michelle Fournié, ‘Une Municipalité en Quête de Reliques: Le Saint Suaire de Cadouin et son Dépôt à Toulouse à la Fin du Moyen Âge,’ Mémoires de la Société Archéologique du Midi de la France, Vol LXXI, 2011
— Michelle Fournié, ‘Du Bon Usage des Reliques en Temps de Crise : le Cas du Saint Suaire de Cadouin-Toulouse,’ Cîteaux – Commentarii Cistercienses, Vol 67, 2016
— Nicolas Sarzeaud, ‘Des Reliques à Mettre aux Normes. Le Procès des Deux Suaires (1403-1404) et l’Identification des Reliques Multiples,’ Les Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 2022
— Émile Morel, Le Saint Suaire de Saint-Corneille de Compiègne, 1904
Hi Hugh,
Thanks for relating the details of these fascinating French shroud cases which parallel the Lirey/Turin Shroud. They show how confusing the situation must have been for popes and other authorities in the 14th century.
But the analogy does not, to me, much support your argument for a medieval origin of the Lirey/Turin Shroud. There are many fake diamonds in the world, which fool a lot of people, but there are also some very real diamonds. The same is true of religious relics.
The non-Lirey “shrouds of Christ” apparently had no blood or credible bloodstain patterns on them. Nor did they bear any mysterious, inexplicable image unlike any known medieval painting or other medieval artwork. None of them was closely associated with one of the noblest knights in all of France, not just brave and strong but supremely honest and honorable. The Lirey/Turin Shroud did not first surface in some big city like Paris or Lyon, but in the tiny village of Lirey with a population of merely a hundred or so, in which that noble knight, Geoffroi de Charny, was lord – or had been lord till his heroic death in battle in September 1356. So, surely, or very probably, he knew of it there and protected it as precious and genuine. He saw it up close.
But I know you have your replies and alternatives to these points.
At the end of your blogpost you write, “By adjusting their claim, the Augustinians maintained the authorisation to display their relic, while, apparently, by sticking to exclusive authenticity, the Lirey clergy lost theirs.”
Hugh, your sentence relates to a point I raised here back on September 5, 2025, in two comments made on your “Fighting False Relics” blogpost of August 30. I wrote that it seemed illogical to me that, if the Lirey clerics or the de Charney family there in Lirey in the 1350s knew their shroud was fake, they would not simply admit that “fact” and apologize, then continue to exhibit it but merely as a very meaningful imitation of the burial shroud of Jesus, thus gaining at least some needed steady income from pilgrims nevertheless eager to see it. Instead they declined that compromise and therefore had no income at all, at all, from the Shroud for three long decades. By that time, c. 1390, many of them were dead and most of them easily could have been dead. Why their refusal to admit such a fake in the 1350s? Unless they knew it was not a fake or at least had very good reason to believe it was not a fake. I haven’t read this point anywhere before, but still trust it makes good sense.
John L.
Hi, Hugh,
Thank you for the well wishes!
Lawyers are engaged in the “practice of Law.” Medical doctors are engaged in the “practice of Medicine.” I don’t recall ever hearing scientists refer to themselves as being in the “practice of Science,” but the concept of the Scientific Method implies it. But, we are “practitioners” in these fields, and the very word indicates that the field is so vast that no one can truly get a full grasp on it. So, we “practice” at achieving that, and, in doing so, we hone our skills. So, I’d like to coin a phrase: “The practice of Sindonology.”
“Wet-behind-the-ear” lawyers, doctors and sindonologists will in no way, shape or form have the depth of knowledge that more seasoned practitioners can develop. I say “can develop,” because one can be engaged in the practice of Law, Medicine or Sindonology for decades but not really be developing truly new depths to one’s knowledge. One can, for example, just keep repeating the same ol’ schtick (and, gee whiz, this does happen a lot in these three fields of practice) without really expanding one’s knowledge base.)
So, people need to beware: someone who has been “involved” in Sindonology for decades might just be presenting popular level information for decades and that’s it. Their decades of “practice” might just be decades of repeating the same ol’ song and dance routine. That doesn’t mean that their “song and dance” is wrong, but maybe it’s not top-level, but it probably will contain flaws that the practitioner who is aggressively studying the area learns to avoid. We are all human, and we can all make mistakes–and we all do. However, the newbies and the ones who just resort to repeating the same ol’ information (which might contain outdated information that is no longer viable or that never was) will, naturally, make more of these mistakes. In every field of study, it’s good to know who the “movers and the shakers” are. But, more importantly, it is good to recognize that there are two types of “movers and shakers” –there are the ones who are “moving and shaking” by broadcasting the popular-level information to others, and there are the ones who are “moving and shaking” through the grueling process of being engaged in meticulous research and/or experiments and learning new things and/or fortifying or debunking claims that have previously been made.
When people who are in a position to know better keep making the same mistakes, what might have been an excusable act of negligence once, cannot continue to be excused once the person or persons have been corrected, or if the correct information has been publicly repeated so much that they cannot claim that they “did not know” without showing themselves to either be deceptive or so out of the loop regarding the information that they cannot be viewed as being very informed on the topic that they are discussing.
A prime example: you and I and many others who are engaged in serious sindonological studies are CONSTANTLY CRINGING when people keep saying that Science has proven that the blood on the Shroud of Turin is human. NO IT HAS NOT. This is a mixture of old information that was once thought to be True (but Science has advanced and we know that it is no longer True) and a mixture of evidence that was never True–as STURP’s Heller and Adler only went so far as to claim that the blood was of a primate. But, again, now it is, as far as the present state of scientific testing, only shown to be genuine blood.
Now, does that mean that we don’t know it’s human blood? Well, it can be CIRCUMSTANTIALLY be shown to be human blood through a long string of evidence. BUT, this is NOT the same as saying (or implying) that a single scientific test has shown this to be the case. One cannot just jump to the conclusion of human blood without specifying all of this, and one has to be exceedingly careful in what and how one presents the information so that it–through the entire process–is accurate. And, we STILL have people with big names in Sindonology repeating this old information about the blood and the blood type. Have these folks not been paying attention? Are they that out-of-touch with the evolution of Shroud scholarship? Well, many of them are–because, as I previously mentioned, there are lots of people who are just repeating the same ol’ song and dance for years without broadening their repertoire.
So, “buyer beware.” If you get your information from the more popular-level sources, you’ll probably still get about 90%+ accurate information on data points (with the person not being able to expound upon the topic beyond the data point.) But, if someone really wants to know a subject, one needs to examine multiple writings on the same topic by those who are spending countless hours, days, months and/or years intensely studying the particular topic.
It is extremely difficult and extremely time-consuming to know one topic (much less many) at a very deep level. So, even the best sindonologists are still in a state of “practicing”–just as the best lawyers and doctors are. But, again, some will practice the same song and dance and others will go on to expand. So, people need to try and figure out which type of “practitioners” they are paying attention to.
But, there is something of crucial importance to remember: even if some errors on some of the less critical issues are made, it is still important to recognize that the overall Truth of the Shroud of Turin’s authenticity can still be vigorously proven beyond a reasonable doubt by many different pieces of evidence. So, there’s that–and that’s quite important. Even some of the popularizers that are making some blunders are still spreading incredible information about what the Shroud of Turin is and what its message is.
All the best,
Teddi
Hi Teddi,
I think “I know it when I see it” is as good a reason for believing in the authenticity of the Shroud as any, and probably better, and I don’t want to dissuade anyone from their belief on those grounds. But I don’t want anybody saying they believe in the Shroud because… and then listing a bunch of facts that aren’t true. And I particularly don’t want anybody trying to persuade a congregation, in a church, of the historical authenticity of the Shroud by claiming they know historical or scientific evidence that they clearly don’t.
In this, I believe I am joined by Jack Markwardt, who gave the first presentation at St Louis on exactly that subject, and Bill Meacham, who has recently published a supportive paper at academia.edu. There may be others.
For the sake of historical completeness, and not to detract from your overall argument – res ipsa loquitur – with which I agree, I hope I may be allowed to complete the quote you gave from Potter Stewart. What he said was, “I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Not having seen the film, I can’t comment on whether I agree in that case, but if we are to use his words to imply a miraculous origin for the Shroud, then I agree with his whole statement, not just the first clause.
Best wishes for 2026 and your book!
Hugh
Also, I failed to specify, earlier, that it is not that just one or more characteristics need to be capable of being replicated–it is that images on a cloth need to be able to exhibit ALL of these special characteristics–that’s where the “magic”–or, dare I say (and I do!) the MIRACLE happens!
Correction: I just noticed that auto-correct changed what I wrote (which was “thrombos”) and made it into “thrombosis.”
Hi, Hugh,
Since we’re on the topic of trials, let’s throw a “spicy” one into the mix.. In the landmark United States Supreme Court case of Jacobellis vs. Ohio (1964), the Court wrestled with the challenge of defining what “obscenity” is in order to determine if a French film was to be considered illegal based upon Ohio’s obscenity laws. In Justice Potter Stewart’s concurring opinion, he famously stated with regard to identifying “obscene” material that, “I know it when I see it.”
Yes, of course, this is a subjective standard, but it is no less subjective than hearing the “ring of Truth” in someone’s statement. While, technically, subjective, REASONABLE minds can often figure these things out. And, the evidence of this occurs daily in jury trials in the United States when jurors have to figure out if the prosecutor has proven someone guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” This is subjective, but reasonable people manage to handle this–albeit not always perfectly.
And, so, God has given us a sacred cloth with His image on It and His bloodstains, and it is for reasonable minds to examine it and figure out what It is.
The description that Gregory Referendarius gives of the Image of Edessa is so powerfully indicative that the Image of Edessa is the same cloth as the Shroud of Turin that we do not need a full and/or perfect provenance for how the Image of Edessa got to Edessa and if it remained in Edessa the entire time (or not.) I do not think that it is in any way, shape or form a “deal-breaker” to not have this. What matters is what Gregory said in His speech with regard to the description of the Image of Edessa. If that’s not the Holy Shroud in Turin, then I’m a monkey’s uncle! He describes the redness on the cloth as “CLOTS” (thrombosis–not “drops”–as has been previously translated) of blood. And, what do we have on the Holy Shroud in Turin? Transfers of BLOOD CLOTS–not drops of blood and not painted blood. The fact that Gregory mentions the lance wound shows that the Image of Edessa is NOT only of the face but Jesus’ entire body. Gregory, himself, spoke of the body images as (I’m going from my recollection here and not looking at the exact quote–but this is basically what he said) that it looks like a painting but that it is not, and Gregory basically describes an image not made by human hands. STURP’s scientific examination of both the Holy Shroud in Turin, Itself, as well as fibers sampled from It, powerfully support that the many specific and important characteristics that the Holy Shroud exhibits continues to elude replication by humans through artistic and/or natural means.
And, so, we have a situation that perfectly fits a Latin phrase that lawyers use: “res ipsa loquitur”–“the thing speaks for itself.” Take it or leave it. But, there is a confluence of so much evidence that gives the Holy Shroud in Turin that glorious “ring of Truth” for all to hear who are interested in listening.
All the best and wishing you and everyone a happy new year,
Teddi
Yes, yes, I can know the description of the images of the Holy Shroud in Turin when I hear it–and others should be able to, as well. But, to each their own. As Shakespeare famously wrote: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”