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1171 - Almaric, the last Christian King of Jerusalem visited Emperor Manuel I Commenus of Constantinople, his father-in-law. William, Archbishop
of Tyre, in his Livre d'Eracles wrote "[...] nothing was hidden. Nothing sacred which had been placed in the hidden places of the sacred rooms from the time of the blessed Emperors Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian but was familiarly revealed to the king and his companions. [...]". The relics included the "[...] most precious evidence of the Passion of Our Lord, namely the cross, nails, lance, sponge, reed, crown of thorns, sindon (that is the cloth in which He was wrapped) and the sandals [...]".
1203 - Robert de Clari in his La Conquête de Constantinople wrote "[...] There was another church which was called My Lady Saint Mary of Blachernae, where there was the sydoines in which our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday,
raised itself upright, so that one could see the features of our Lord on it, and no one, either Greek or French, ever knew what became of this sydoines when the city was taken [...]".
1205 - Theodore Ducas Angelos in a letter to Pope Innocent III wrote "[...] In April last year a crusading army, having falsely set out to liberate the Holy Land, instead laid waste the city of Constantine. During the sack troops of Venice and France looted even the holy sanctuaries. The Venetians partitioned the treasures of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of the saints and, most sacred of all the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before the resurrection. We know that the sacred objects are preserved by their predators in Venice, in France and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens. So many spoils and sacred objects should not be taken contrary to all human and divine laws, nevertheless in your name in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, albeit against your will, the barbarians of our age have done just that [...]".
A sudden appearance
1356 - Henri de Poitiers, bishop of Troyes, sent Geoffrey de Charny1 a letter of praise and approval for having placed in the collegiate of Lirey (a small French village near Troyes) "[...] the Shroud of Our Lord Jesus Christ [...] bearing the effigy of our Savior [...]". The Shroud was in the church since 1353, when Geoffrey de Charny founded the Lirey collegiate. He was the most prominent member of the de Charnys, the family who owned the Shroud, and died at the battle of Poitiers in September 1356.
1389 - Bishop Pierre d'Arcis in a letter to Pope Clement VII in 1389 complained about a scandal uncovered in his diocese at the collegiate church of Lirey, France. The church canons and Bishop Henri de Poitiers had "[...] falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for their church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say the back
and front, they falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual Shroud in which our Savior Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb [...]". After diligent inquiry and examination, he [Bishop Henri de Poitiers] discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed [...]". The complaint was further reinforced by documents of Geoffrey II, Geoffrey de Charny's son, which consistently referred
to the relic not as a likeness or representation, a formula repeated by Geoffrey II's daughter, Margaret de Charny, and her husband Humbert de Villersexel.2
1449 - Margaret de Charny exhibited the Shroud in Liége, Belgium. On her way, she "[...]
took the Shroud to Hainault, arriving at Chimay in the summer of 1449 with a shroud3 in her luggage, on which was marvelously painted4 in the form of the body of Christ with the precise outlines5 of his limbs, the wounds in his side, hands and feet tinged with blood as if the wounds had been inflicted quite recently [...]".6
1453 - Margaret de Charny, widowed and childless, ceded the Shroud to Anne of Lusignano,7 wife of Duke Ludovico of Savoy, in the hands of whose descendants the Shroud has been preserved, until willed to the Vatican upon the death of Umberto of Savoy in 1983. Due this change to more illustrious ownership, the Shroud begun to lose its reputation to be a medieval fake with remarkable rapidity. The Shroud was kept at Chambéry, capital of Savoy.
The Shroud begun to lose its fraudulent associations
1494 - The Shroud was displayed by Duchess Bianca of Savoy on Good Friday 1494. There are no records of having been displayed or seen during these forty years.
1506 - Pope Giulio II8 granted the church at Chambéry, where the Shroud was kept, the title of Sainte Chapelle, assigning the Shroud its own feast day (4 May).
1532 - The fire destroyed the church at Chambéry and caused the major burn marks still visible on the Shroud.
1535 - The Shroud was transferred from Chambéry, to Turin, Vercelli, Milan, Nice and again to Vercelli.
1561 - The Shroud was transferred from Vercelli to Chambéry.
1578 - The Shroud was transferred from Chambéry to the Cathedral at Turin, the new capital of Savoy, by the order of Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy, and it was to remain there.
1610 - The Shroud was exhibited in Turin and Vercelli for the beatification of Carlo Borromeo. On the way, the Shroud was exhibited at Torrione Castle, were the event was immortalized in a fresco by Giovanni Mauro and Giovanni Battista Della Rovere (the "Fiamminghini") on the external wall toward the inner ward. Although with its tones now dimmed, it shows, left to right, the Blessed Carlo Borromeo, the Holy Black Virgin of Oropa and the Duke Amedeo IX of Savoy,9 the Shroud being in front of them.
1939 - During World War II, the Shroud was transferred from Turin to Montevergine (Avellino) where it was to remain until 1946.
Tomaso Vialardi di Sandigliano
From the records of the Vialardi di Sandigliano Foundation Museum and Center
for History and Humanities
© 1996-2007. All rights reserved
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NOTE:
1 nephew of the last Visitor of the Knights Templar
Geoffrey de Charney and second cousin to Guillaume de Beaujeu, antepenult Templar Grand Master. Templar connections figure heavily in the story of the Shroud, especially during the final dramatic years of the Order's official existence. Both Geoffrey de Charny and
his wife, Jeanne de Vergy had grandfathers who were seneschals. Of the 16 French knights to escape Philips purge, most were of the de Charny, de Joinville and de Vergy families. A century before the demise of the Templars and a century and a half before the appearance of the Shroud of Litey, the same families had also held key positions in the Fourth crusade, in which the sydoine disappeared in the looting of Constantinople.As the Templars were prominent in the Fourth Crusade and participated in the looting, it has been put forward that the Shroud passed to Charny family from the Order in 1307, when the Order was attacked, but there are no historical evidences of this passage.
2 who kept the Shroud at St. Hippolyte-sur-Doubs in
the early-fifteenth century.
3linteum.
4miro
artificio depicta.
5lineamintis.
6 according to Cornelius Zantvliet, a Benedictine monk
of Saint-Jacques at Liège, who died in 1462.
7 daughter of Jean I de Chypre.
8 Giuliano della Rovere.
9 son of Duke Ludovico of Savoy and Anne of Lusignano.
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