The most important questions for the Medieval hypothesis to answer are not How, or Why, the Shroud was created, and certainly not Who created it, but Where, and When. It might be supposed that the second of these was fairly rigorously satisfied by the radiocarbon dating, but although fifty years or so either side of 1300 AD is enough to reject any supposition of authenticity, it does not help much in identifying the history of the cloth before its appearance in Lirey in about 1355.
Primary sources, it must be admitted, are weak. Easily the most detailed is the description of Pierre d’Arcis, Bishop of Troyes from 1377 to 1395, in his famous ‘memorandum’ to Pope Clement VII in about 1390.
“Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the Dean of a certain collegiate church, to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, […] procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Saviour Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, and upon which the whole likeness of the Saviour had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which He bore. This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, throughout the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. […] The Lord Henry of Poitiers, of pious memory, then Bishop of Troyes, becoming aware of this […] set himself earnestly to work to fathom the truth of this matter. […] Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist [‘artificem’] who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed. Accordingly […] he began to institute formal proceedings against the said Dean and his accomplices in order to root out this false presumption. They, seeing their wickedness discovered, hid away the said cloth so that the Ordinary could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year.” 1
Bishop d’Arcis has detractors, whose denigrations are based on the fact that even before this was written, the Pope had already permitted the exhibition of the “figuram sive representacionem,” provided it was not passed off as the authentic burial cloth of Christ, and that he had enjoined the Bishop to perpetual silence, on pain of excommunication. The fact that no record of the ‘diligent inquiry’ seems to have survived is another, if weak, string to their bow, in spite of d’Arcis’ insistence later in the document that he was prepared to send all his evidence to the Pope if he wanted it.
None of this amounts to falsification on the part of the Bishop, nor does anyone ever query his statement that the Dean and Canons of Lirey had hidden the cloth for “thirty-four years or thereabouts,” putting its last exhibition in about 1355 or 1356. Since the Lord of Lirey at the time, Geoffrey de Charny the elder, is not mentioned at all in the memorandum, and the acquisition of the cloth is attributed entirely to the Dean of Lirey, it may be assumed that de Charney was away in the service of his King at the time, dying at the Battle of Poitiers on 19 September 1356. That he knew nothing of the Shroud is also suggested by a letter to him from the Bishop of Troyes, Henri de Poitiers, dated 28 May 1356, a few months before his death, in which the Bishop extolls his devotion to the “divine cult” (which we may assume to be that of the Virgin Mary, to whom his chapel was dedicated) but does not mention the Shroud.
Geoffrey de Charny had applied for permission to establish a chapel in Lirey as long before as 1343, but it was only finally consecrated ten years later. The Virgin Mary was the particular subject of veneration of the Cistercian Order, all of whose houses are dedicated to her, and Bernard of Clairvaux was especially devoted to her cult. This may be significant. Alain Horseau, in his ‘About the Holy Shroud and the Collegiate Church of Lirey,’ says that in 1354, Pope Innocent VI issued a bull granting Geoffrey permission to name his own choices for Dean and Canons, and lists them as Robert de Cailliaco, Guillaume de Bragelogne, Renaud de Savoisy, Henri de Seilliers, Jean de Lizines and Robert de Saint Vinnemer. Caillac is a long way from Lirey, between Limoges and Toulouse, but the names of the other canons derive from places within 100 miles of Lirey. Between them, these six seem to have been the prime movers in the initial presentation of the Shroud to a credulous public. But where did they get it from?
The cloth is fine and expensive, and seems to have been made for display, but surely, if it was made by a local craftsman, or previously displayed in a local church, it would be recognised, and the spurious – and quite unsubstantiated and unauthorised – claims that it was a genuine relic would never have obtained traction among the community. It seems to me that it may more likely have come from an enclosed monastery, such as Clairvaux, barely fifty miles to the east of Lirey, or one of its many satellites.
Clairvaux Abbey was founded by St Bernard, a monk of Cîteaux, a hundred miles to the south, which was founded by Robert of Molesme to follow the Rule of St Benedict more strictly than was the norm in other monasteries of the time. If anything, Bernard was even more austere in practice, and emphasised simple, plain but practical design in everything from the gilding of armour to the architecture of churches. He died in 1153, but had been such a towering figure in twelfth century monasticism, European politics and Christian theology that his personal influence scarcely waned in the next two hundred years, and lives on today not only in Cistercian monasteries, but in religious and liturgical themes throughout Christendom.
Cistercian Clairvaux, epitomised in Bernard’s works and legacy, developed a particularly intense interpretation of a idea that was gradually spreading through European Chrisitanity, namely an increased emphasis on the human love of Christ the man, as opposed to the divine love of Christ the god. This love went both ways, from Christ to people, and from people to Christ, and was often expressed, especially in late medieval literature, in physical as well as spiritual terms. The quintessentially erotic Song of Songs, from the Old Testament, was interpreted as a dialogue between Christ and his Church, and clearly not entirely metaphorically. Both men and women were caught up in a spiritual ecstasy of embracing, kissing and suckling that cannot but strike a suspicious chord in the context of the austere abstinence of celibate monasteries, although the accusations of universal lasciviousness that accompanied sixteenth century reforms and the dissolution of the monasteries in England cannot be sustained.
Just as Christ’s love for man culminated in his passion and death, so did the empathy of man for Christ achieve its zenith in contemplation of his suffering and wounds. Prayers speak of crawling into his heart, drinking his blood, licking and sucking up the dribbles down his limbs and feet, in such graphic and physiological terms that the idea of complete chastity of emotion becomes increasingly far-fetched.
Bernard’s sermons reflect this new physicality, and very specifically draw his hearers into the story he describes. Line Cecilie Engh calls this “Imaginative immersion,” and in her discussion of ‘The Resurrection of the Lord,’ Sermon 2, says that, listening to it, “the monks not only witness, but actively enter into biblical events and characters. This sermon features a re-staging of a biblical scene (based primarily on Matt 28:1-6 and Mark 16:1-6): the women who run to the tomb of Jesus at early dawn only to find it empty – except for an angel sitting on top of the tombstone. The sermon invites the monks (i.e., the audience/reader) to appropriate the viewpoint and the voice of these women.” 2
The tenth century Regularis Concordia describes an actual presentation on which this sermon could be based:
“#46. [Good Friday] […] On that part of the altar where there is space for it there shall be a representation as it were of a sepulchre, hung about with a curtain, in which the holy cross, when it has been venerated, shall be placed in the following manner: the deacons who carried the cross before shall come forward and, having wrapped the cross in a napkin [sindon] there where it was venerated, they shall bear it thence, singing the antiphons …”
#50. [Easter Sunday morning] […] On that same night, before the bells are run for Matins, the sacrists shall take the cross and set it in its proper place. […]
#51. [At Nocturns] While the third lesson is being read, four of the brethren shall vest, one of whom, wearing an alb as though for some different purpose, shall enter and go stealthily to the place of the ‘sepulchre’ and sit there quietly, holding a palm in his hand. Then, while the third respond is being sung, the other three brethren, vested in copes and holding thuribles in their hands, shall enter in their turn and go to the place of the ‘sepulchre,’ step by step, as though searching for something. Now these things are done in imitation of the angel seated on the tomb and of the women coming with perfumes to anoint the body of Jesus. When, therefore, he that is seated shall see these three draw nigh, wandering about as it were and seeking something, he shall begin to sing softly and sweetly, Quem quaeritis. As soon as this has been sung right through the three shall answer together, Ihesum Nazarenum. Then he that is seated shall say, Non est hic. Surrexit sicut praedixerat. Ite, nuntiate quia surrexit a mortuis. At this command the three shall turn to the choir saying, Alleluia. Resurrexit Dominus. When this has been sung he that is seated, as though calling them back, shall say the antiphon, Venite et videte locum, and then, rising and lifting up the veil, he shall show them the place void of the cross and with only the linen [linteamina] in which the cross had been wrapped. Seeing this the three shall lay down their thuribles in that same ‘sepulchre’ and, taking the linen [linteum], shall hold it up before the clergy; and, as though showing that the Lord was risen and was no longer wrapped in it, they shall sing this antiphon, Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro. They shall then lay the linen [linteum] on the altar.” 3
The Regularis Concordia set a pattern for monastic religious observance that spread all over Europe, and the Visitatio Sepulchri (the name of the performance whose dialogue begins with “Quem quaeritis”) spread with it, and was also used as part of the Easter Sunday masses – presumably especially in non-monastic contexts, where Matins was not celebrated. Later, after the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264 by Pope Urban IV (who came from Troyes), it was used there too. The Cistercians made it a ‘festum sermonis,’ the highest grade of liturgical feast, in 1332.
The “representation as it were of a sepulchre” did not stay on the altar for long. Either permanent Easter Sepulchres were built into the north transepts of churches or portable wooden versions were used, sometimes life-sized, such as that of Maigrauge, a Cistercian nunnery in Switzerland.
in such a place it would be impossible to place a “holy cross,” so it was substituted by an image, such as this, of Weinhausen, another Cistercian nunnery, near Munich.
It was the image that was “wrapped in a napkin” and the napkin [sindon, linteamina or lintea] that was taken up and held before the clergy while the choir sang Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro, before laying it on the altar.
Although Geoffrey de Charny himself may not have known anything about the Shroud to be exhibited after his death, and in his name, both his and his wife’s families had long been supporters of the Cistercians, and several of their forebears were buried at Cîteaux. Saint Bernard’s influence (posthumous, of course; he died in 1153) must surely have reached as far as Lirey, even if there was no direct connection. The Shroud might easily have been a gift to the Dean and Canons of Lirey, after a visit, perhaps, or the attending of the investiture of a new abbot.
The Abbey of Clairvaux was no stranger to expensive cloth. Twelfth and later century textiles from the abbey, now preserved in the Church of St Martin, Ville sous la Ferté, include elaborately woven damasks in various threads, such as silk, hemp, linen and cotton, which may be of North Italian origin. The ‘shroud of Bernard of Clairvaux’ is made of fustian, with a hemp warp and cotton weft, and there is some indication that the Shroud of Turin may also be made of slightly differing warp and weft material.
Clues, admittedly rather remote, from d’Arcis’ memorandum are the “diligent inquiry” of Henri of Poitiers, Bishop of Troyes from 1354 – 1370, and his success at discovering the origin of the imaged cloth. This suggests that it was relatively local, but also relatively difficult to recognise. He must have asked around the parishes of his diocese, and then around the nearby enclosed monasteries, one of whom would have recognised it. The actual artifex was presumably still working in their craft workshop, who could easily explain how he did it, almost certainly at the abbott or abbess’s request, and where he got the cloth.
1 Translated by Rev. Herbert Thurston, ‘The Holy Shroud and The Verdict of History,’ The Month, Volume 101
2 Line Cecilie Engh, ‘Imaginative Immersion in the Cistercian Cloister,’ Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinenta, Volume 31
3 Translated by Dom Thomas Symons, Regularis Concordia, The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation.