Fr Maurus Green wrote a scholarly article for the Ampleforth Journal in 1969, before too much emphasis became placed on the scientific analysis of the Shroud, called “Enshrouded in Silence,” in which he mentioned the ‘Mozarabic Rite,’ and quoted a short extract from it.
“Others, like the author of the seventh century Mozarabic rite, simply speak of “the traces (vestigia) on the linens (linteaminibus) of the dead and risen man” – a commentary on the linens in the empty tomb. [fn] The Mozarabic rite developed in sixth and seventh century Visigothic Spain. St Leander of Seville, who died in 599 and spent some time in Constantinople, may have influenced its composition. Our passage (echoed by two others), “ad monumentum Petrus cum Johanne cuccurrit, recentiaque in linteaminibus defuncti et resurgentis vestigia cernit,” has suggested the translation, “Peter ran with John to the tomb and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen man on the linens”, favoured by Savio [Pietro Savio, Ricerche Storiche sulla Santa Sindone, 1957]. Vestigium (footstep, footprint, trace or mark: meanings unchanged since the seventh century) could permit this, but the more figurative traces would indicate merely the wrapped state of the cloths as though still enfolding the absent body, without implying any knowledge of imprints.” (Ampleforth Journal, Vol 74. Part III, at ampleforthjournal.org)
Although Fr Green is clearly not convinced, these words have been taken as evidence of knowledge of an image on the Shroud since well before its first appearance in France in the mid-fourteenth century.
The Mozarabic Rite, so called from its use by the Christians of Muslim/Arabic Spain rather than its origin, was one of numerous versions of the liturgy which emerged in different centres of Christianity around Europe, such as the Gallic Rite, the Gothic Rite and the Celtic Rite, which were almost entirely superseded, partly by assimilation and partly by decree, by the Roman Rite now used throughout the Catholic Church. Some are still used either locally or sporadically – the Mozarabic Rite particularly in Toledo, for example.
They are all broadly similar, although with distinctive traits of their own, and one which distinguishes the Mozarabic Rite is its very large number of Prefaces (called Inlatio in the Mozarabic), the introductions to the Liturgy of the Eucharist, punctuated by the Sanctus. In English they are introduced with the call “Let us give thanks to the Lord Our God,” and after the reply, “It is right and just,” begin with the words, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks…” The Roman Missal has fifty or so variations, now almost invariably spoken in the vernacular of the congregation. The Mozarabic Rite has hundreds, and they’re in Latin.
The one quoted by Maurus Green is from the Saturday after Easter, and is an exultet on the Resurrection. In part it is a succession of the joyful things that have happened.
“Agnoscit Mater membra que genuit: Maria Magdalene Angelo increpante resipuit ne viventem cum mortuis querere debuisset. Ad monumentum Petrus cum Iohanne cucurrit, recentiaque in linteaminibus defuncti et resurgentis vestigia cernit. Latro Christum confessus possessor Paradisi factus est primitivus.”
This means (my translation):
“His Mother recognised the flesh she bore. Mary Magdalene, weeping, met the Angel who rebuked her for seeking the dead among the living. Peter and John ran to the Sepulchre, and recognised recent traces of the dead and risen in the linen cloths. The penitent thief became the first to enter Paradise.”
The exact words are interesting. Vestigia nearly always means footprints, for example, rather than any other kind of impression, and certainly never a coloured mark, and resurgentis normally has a less miraculous meaning than resurrectionis, which also occurs in the same preface.
I myself think that the point about the clothes being left in the empty tomb is that their presence was evidence that the body had not been stolen, as Mary Magdalen first suspected, and no doubt many of Jesus’s erstwhile followers had suspected. Nobody unwraps a dead body. Even today, some scholars consider the empty tomb in itself as evidence of the Resurrection, but the evangelists knew that it wasn’t enough on its own. I don’t think it can be inferred that they, or the author of Mozarabic Rite, necessarily thought that there was an image on the linen.