Three Wise Men

Emanuele Filiberto Pingone (1525 – 1582)

Filiberto Pingone, Baron de Cusy, was one of the most senior members of the Court of Savoy. Born and brought up in Chambéry, he trained as a lawyer and rose to become senior legal advisor and court historiographer to Duke Emmanuel-Philibert whose busy reign included regaining and consolidating Savoyard territory which had been lost to the French, and moving the capital of Savoy from Chambéry to Turin in 1563. Unwilling to upset the Church in Chambéry, the Duke waited for an acceptable excuse to move the Shroud to the new capital, and found it when Carlo Borromeo, Bishop of Milan, expressed a wish to visit the Shroud, in gratitude for the relief of a plague which had struck Lombardy in 1576. To save him the arduous walk over the Alps, the Shroud was brought across to Turin, where, in spite of previous assurances that it would return, it has remained.

As part of the new dispensation, Pingone wrote a large number of quasi-historical justifications for the sovereignty of Savoy, and also Sindon Evangelica (The Shroud of the Gospels), attempting to define a royal pedigree for a relic which, although it had been in Savoyard hands for over a hundred years, had never been satisfactorily “explained.” No doubt after some investigation, Pingone found himself in possession of a number of ‘facts’ on which to hang an entirely fabricated story, conveniently omitting the repudiation of the Shroud by two episcopal inquiries and a Pope.

Without claiming exact knowledge, Pingone says that surely the burial cloths would have been preserved, by Peter, John, Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus, and would eventually have found their way into the possession of the kings of Jerusalem. The last king regnant, Henry II of the House of Lusignan, was also King of Cyprus, and the ancestor of King Janus of Cyprus whose daughter Ann married Louis, Duke of Savoy, in 1434. Although this could have been a possible way in which the Shroud came to Chambéry, the name Margaret de Charny was apparently an undeniable part of the story, and so, perhaps, was Constantinople, so “a certain illustrious matron called Margaret of Carni,” was invented, who packed up her belongings, among which happened to be the Shroud, and set off from Greece for Gaul when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Pingone claims that she was married to a Hector de Lusignan, who was clearly related to the aforementioned Ann, which is how this Margaret ended up in Savoy. This is nonsense. Hector de Lusignan was a rather distant descendant of the main Jerusalem/Cyprus line of Kings, and although he married two successive Margarets, neither was connected to anywhere or anything called anything like Charny.

Along the way of his rather convoluted exposition (he seems to have been one of the first authors to admit, “but I digress,” “Sed ut ad rem propius“) Pingone makes passing reference to three other shrouds, in Burgundy, Lusitania, and Utrecht. He doesn’t describe them or their origins at all, but finds that they do not conflict with the Turin Shroud, “because it is said that there were several burial sheets,” some being contributed by the holy women as well as that of Joseph of Arimathea.

Jean-Jacques Chifflet (1588 – 1660)

Chifflet was a Burgundian, born and brought up in Besançon, where he worked as a doctor, but was also an antiquarian and early archaeologist. In 1624 he wrote De Linteis Sepulchralibus Christi Servatoris: Crisis Historica, On the Burial Cloths of Christ: A Historical Review, in which, of course, the Shroud of Besançon plays the most prominent part. As the latest addition to the genre, it had to fight hard to justify itself, and Chifflet devoted much of his book to explaining its relationship to the Shroud of Turin, claiming that they were both authentic. However the Besançon cloth being only well established since about 1520, an elaborate backstory had to be established, which even Chifflet found extremely difficult, finding that “de sudarii sui origine nihil sciunt Vesontini,” and having to fill in the gaps himself. Sadly, he found that all the documents relating to the relic’s arrival at Besançon had been destroyed in a fire in 1349, and there are awkward gaps between its disappearance in the fire and miraculous re-appearance about 25 years later, and between then and the 1520s.

Regarding the Turin Shroud, Chifflet dismisses Pingone’s account as fabrication, and goes with the better attested story that the Shroud had been brought to France by Geoffrey de Charny. He describes the inquiries of Bishops Henri de Poitiers and Pierre d’Arcis, but utterly rejects them, mostly on the grounds that subsequent events, including several miracles, have proved them wrong. Even so, he finds that the Turin Shroud was only used to carry Jesus from the cross to the tomb, and that the Besançon cloth was the one that covered him after he had been laid out.

Apart from these two pre-eminent shrouds, Chifflet also investigates the shroud of Chambéry, which was older and better attested than either Turin’s or Besançon’s, and decided that it must have been draped over the Besançon shroud in the tomb, then goes on to mention several other shrouds or parts of shrouds but without deeper comment.

Jacques Langellé (fl. c.1650)

Little is known of Langellé outside his book on the shroud of Compiègne, in which he describes himself as a monk of St Maur, a monastery in Paris which fell into decay in the 18th century. He dedicates his work to the wife of the governor of Compiègne, and explains that he has been caretaker of its holy shroud and other relics for three years. After much study, he, like others before him, has concluded that there were several shrouds at Jesus’s burial, so that his research poses no threat to the shrouds of Turin or Besançon, although, he adds a little coyly, “Il est vray que la possession de plus de huit cens ans, les titres & les autoritez des Historiens rendent le nostre fort considerable.”

Langellé then floats through various legends regarding the peregrinations of these shrouds before they left the Middle East, before landing on solid ground in Chapter IV, and documents showing that the Shroud of Compiègne was brought there by Charles the Bald, Charlemagne’s grandson, from his collection in Aix-la-Chapelle, in 876. Charles had also rebuilt the town and founded the monastery. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a precise record of this occasion, and a 12th century description of it is in some parts too fanciful for us to consider it absolute proof. A chronicle by a monk of Cluny says:

“Karolus Calvus, post mortem fratrum suorum regnat super Francos annis XX. Hic cum Normannis et Britonibus saepe conflixit. In Hierusalem quoque cum magno, ut fertur, perrexit exercitu, orationis gratia. Inde vero post, Constantinopulim rediens, repetiit Franciam, ubi nobilem ecclesiam apud Compendium castrum de novo construxit, multisque redditibus et praediis illam ditavit, insuper reliquiis quas de Hierosolymis Constantinopoli advexerat eamdem insignivit; inter quae pretiosissimum sudarium domini, quod in sepulchro habuit in praefata ecclesia reposuit, quod usque hodie ibidem asservatur.“

“Charles the Bald, after the death of his brothers, reigned over the Franks for twenty years. Here he often fought with the Normans and Britons. He also went to Jerusalem with a large army, as is said, for the sake of prayer. From there, however, returning to Constantinople, he returned to France, where he rebuilt a noble church in the town of Compiègne, and enriched it with many revenues and estates, and moreover he distinguished it with relics which he had brought from Jerusalem via Constantinople; among which he placed the most precious shroud of the Lord, which had been in his tomb, which is preserved there to this day.”

Chronicon fratris Ricardi Cluniacensis monachi, 1156-1174, quoted in Chanoine Emile Morel, Le Saint Suaire de Saint-Corneille de Compiègne, 1904

But Charles never went to Jerusalem to collect any relics; they had been acquired by Charlemagne and stored at Aix-la-Chapelle. Luckily Langellé is on safer ground with his next mention, when the shroud of Compiègne was transferred from its ivory reliquary into a gold, jewelled one presented by Queen Matilda of England. on 21 March 1092

“La Translation du Saint Suaire la Fête de la Mi-Carême et les Trois Jours de Prévoté.
Compiègne, 1092.
Le roi Philippe Ier à la prière de Mathilde ou Mahaud de Flandres, reine d’Angleterre, – qui avait envoyé au monastère de Compiègne un reliquaire d’or, merveilleusement travaillé, orné de diamants et de pierres précieuses, pour y déposer le saint Suaire du Sauveur, présent de Charles le Chauve, conservé jusque-là dans un reliquaire d’ivoire, – fit procéder à la translation de la sainte relique, le quatrième dimanche de Carême. Après un jeûne de trois jours, le très saint linceul fut exposé par les évêques à la vénération d’une innombrable multitude de fidèles, puis renfermé dans la châsse précieuse.”

Cartulaire de l’abbaye de Saint-Corneille de Compiègne, Vol 1, 877-1216, ed. Chanoine Emile Morel, 1904

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Now this may have to be a ‘work in progress,’ but so far, I have not been able to discover an earlier mention of a burial cloth of Jesus in Europe than the 1092 one above. In spite of frequent reference to a collection of relics at Aix-la-Chapelle by Charlemagne, there is no good evidence for how it was achieved, what was in it, nor any contemporary description, (see below) and the same applies to the collection, acquired over many years, in Rome. Nevertheless, there were certainly well-established shrouds (or ‘burial cloths’) at Compiègne, Cahors, Kornelimünster, Oviedo and probably Toulouse and Carcassonne, well before the arrival of the Shroud of Lirey.

This brings us to an interesting conundrum. Not one of these shrouds is associated with the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders. Most of them were being venerated in France a hundred years previously, or at least derived their origin from Carolingian times, and even the newcomers, Lirey-Chambéry and Besançon, claimed origin from long before or after. Is it not curious, then, that almost every discussion of “the lost years” of the Shroud of Turin takes 1204 as their starting point?

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There is a list of relics allegedly present in the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle when it was consecrated by Pope Leo III in 804, by an otherwise completely unknown Bishop of Orleans called Guibertus. Charles de la Saussaye, in Annales Ecclesiae Aurelianensis: saeculis et Libris (1615), quoted:

“Hic ab omnibus incelebratus hactenus, ex veteribus manuscriptus Sancti Dionisi in Francia nobis emicuit, ex quibus haec exscripta sunt. Rex Carolus legatos regios per totum pene orbem terrarum destinavit, monens ut ones in Indibus mensis Iunii Aquisgrani convenirent ad adorandas sacrosanctas reliquias, quarum hic est catalogus, videlicet de spinea corona Domini octo spine, unus de Clavis Domini, de Cruce unum frustum, sudarium Domini, Camisa Beatae Mariae Virginis matris Christi, fascia qua corpus Domini strinxit & in praesepio ligavit, & brachium sancti senis Simeonis cum multis aliis sacrosanctis reliquiis.”

“Here, previously unnoticed by anybody, a manuscript has suddenly appeared for us from antiquity in Saint Denis, France, from which the following has been copied. King Charles sent royal envoys throughout almost the whole world, notifying that they should assemble in Aix-la-Chapelle near the river Inde in the month of June to adore the sacred relics, of which the following is a list, namely, eight thorns from the crown of thorns of the Lord, one of the nails of the Lord, one piece of the Cross, the Lord’s shroud, the shirt of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ, the bands with which the body of the Lord was wrapped and bound in the manger, and the arm of the holy old man Simeon with many other sacred relics.”

De la Saussaye reckoned this passage, quoted in the unknown manuscript of St Denis, was from 804, but Fernand de Mély, in 1904, in Exuviæ Sacræ Constantinopolitanæ: Gallo-Græci Illustrantium; La Croix des Premiers Croisés, La Sainte Lance, La Sainte Couronne, discusses it and thinks its provenance is too insecure to be reliable. It really describes the relics in St Denis, which can only retrospectively be attributed to Aix-la-Chapelle.

Another early document, also mostly about St Denis, is the Descriptio Qualiter Karolus Magnus Clavum et Coronum Domini a Constantinopoli Aquisgrani Detulerit Qualiterque Karolus Calvus hec ad Sanctum Dyonisium Retulerit, from the (very) late 11th century, and possibly written to accompany the translation of the shroud of Compiègne from one reliquary to another in 1092. The complete text can be found in Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11 und 12 Jahrhundert, by Gerhard Rauschen (1890), at archive.org. It describes at length the completely fictitious crusade of Charlemagne to Jerusalem, and how each of his relics was discovered, some verified by means of miracles, and brought back to Aix. The list is identical to that above, and is clearly more of a justification for the relics in France than an authoritative account of anything that may have been at Aix. Although the shroud is included, almost incidentally, among the list, it is clear that it was detached from the collection (if it was ever part of it) before it reached St Denis, and allocated to St Corneille instead.

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No sooner posted than edited. Nicolas Sarzeaud points out that although entire, or at least substantial pieces of, shrouds are not known before the 10th century, some tantalising documents do suggest that fragments may have been around. The Annals of Hildesheim, an account of a medieval city from its founding in 815 into the 12th century, record the digging of the foundations of of the Church of St Wigbert in 831, by Bun, Abbot of Hersfeld, and Rabanus, abbot of Fulda, and its consecration by Rabanus, now Archbishop of Mainz, in 850.¹ Bishop Rabanus composed a large corpus of poems, including a description of the relics kept in the Church of St Wigbert. In the east apse, where the saint was buried, were a piece of Jesus’ manger, a piece of the Holy Sepulchre, a table from the Mount of Olives, and relics of numerous saints. Other parts of the church were dedicated to, and perhaps contained relics of, dozens more, and in the cross which stood on the high altar: “Pars crucis hic Domini set, qua Christus saecla beavit. Portio sudarii chlamydis atque sacra.”²

And, in 852 the Emperor Lothair I donated a huge collection of relics to the Monastery of Prüm – three years before he was buried – including “de sudario Domini.”³

Finally, a bible dated to 820 – 840 in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, called the Bible de Saint-Riquier,⁴ has a list of relics on the very last page.⁵

“In Mediano Alteri Hae Continentur Reliquiae.
De ligno s^anc^tae crucis
De sudario d^omini
De vestimento d^omini
De syndone d^omini
De pelve in quo loti sunt pedes apostoloru^m a d^omino
De linteo unde d^omin^us tersit pedes apostolorum”
… etc…

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1). Bethany Hope Allen, The Annals of Hildesheim, 2007, at scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/thesis/article/1036/&path_info=1443595.pdf

2). In Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Poetae 2, at dmgh.de/mgh_poetae_2/#page/229/mode/1up

3). In Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Diplomata, at dmgh.de/mgh_dd_lo_i__dd_lo_ii/index.htm#page/280/mode/1up

4). At archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cc84530

5). gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452544z/f524.item