Fourth Crusade
Questions About Authenticity of the Letter
Carol Sweetenham, in her 2005 translation and commentary of Robert the Monk's History of the First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana, questions the authenticity of Alexios’ letter to the Count of Flanders, believing that Alexios would not itemize the treasures of Constantinople. It was, she believed, a drummed up propaganda piece written in the West to mobilize support for the crusades. Nothing appealed so much as the lure of wealth attached to the prospects of adventure. But, as Dan Scavone notes:
To dismiss this letter as a spurious piece of Latin propaganda virtually making the Byzantine emperor beg for the Latins’ expropriation of the imperial relics during the Fourth Crusade is to miss its significance as a Byzantine document referring to the presence of Jesus’ burial wrappings in Constantinople. . . . Most historians have agreed that Alexios would not have written such words, but they also concur that this epistula probably “depends on an authentic letter of the basileus” written with another end in mind and that it dates, variously, from 1091 to 1105.
In other words, though the letter may well have been a propaganda piece, it strongly suggests that the burial cloth of Jesus—real or not—was in Constantinople. And while I agree with Scavone in almost all of historical assessments, I am reminded too that he has counseled me to remember that all history is interpretation. I see it differently.
The Fourth Crusade
When we read about the history of the shroud we often encounter a brief mentioning of the fact that in 1204, Constantinople was sacked by the French and Venetian soldiers of the 4th Crusade. That is understated understatement. There is perhaps no better way to describe what happened then to quote Steven Runciman from his monumental three-volume History of the Crusades:
For nine centuries the great city had been the capital of Christian civilisation. It was filled with works of art that had survived from ancient Greece and with the masterpieces of its own exquisite craftsmen. The Venetians wherever they could seized treasures and carried them off. But the Frenchmen and Flemings were filled with a lust for destruction: they rushed in a howling mob down the streets and through the houses, snatching up everything that glittered and destroying whatever they could not carry, pausing only to murder or to rape, or to break open the wine-cellars. Neither monasteries nor churches nor libraries were spared. In St Sophia itself drunken soldiers could be seen tearing down the silken hangings and pulling the silver iconostasis to pieces, while sacred books and icons were trampled under foot. While they drank from the altar-vessels a prostitute sang a ribald French song on the Patriarch’s throne. Nuns were ravished in their convents. Palaces and hovels alike were wrecked. Wounded women and children lay dying in the streets. For three days the ghastly scenes continued until the huge and beautiful city was a shambles. Even after order was restored, citizens were tortured to make them reveal treasures they had hidden. (38)
Nicholas of Otranto
It should come as no surprise that the abbot of Casole should have been appointed the Papal Legate at this catastrophic time when, in effect, the western church had captured the eastern church. He was a learned man who knew both Greek and Latin. Scavone relates:
One of the interpreters at these meetings, a man fluent in both Latin and Greek, was Nicholas of Otranto, abbot of Casole monastery in southern Italy. In 1205 he greeted the new papal legate, Benedict of St. Susanna, then on his way to Constantinople via Brindisi, and accompanied him through Greece to the capital. There he served as Benedict’s personal interpreter and translator. The literary legacy of this little‑known scholar includes some poetry and at least three reports of the disputations in which he served as interpreter. These were written both in Greek and in his own Latin translations.
His reference to the shroud of Jesus comes in the midst of his discussion in 1207 of the use of yeast in the Eucharistic meal of the Last Supper. A portion of that very bread had been present, the Byzantines had asserted, in the imperial relic collection. Among the relics of the Passion, which he now enumerated, were a portion of that bread and Jesus’ spargana, Greek for “linens.” This word normally renders infant’s swaddling clothes, and the fascia of his Nicholas’ Latin translation does not help. Since, however, Nicholas was listing relics of the Passion, he must mean burial linens. . . .
Nicholas of Otranto writes of the shroud that he “saw with our own eyes.” But where? He had not been in Constantinople in 1204. Was it still there, now in 1207? Or had he seen it elsewhere?
Othon De La Roche
It seems likely, though we don’t know exactly when, Othon De La Roche, the French Duke of Athens, having acquired the shroud in Constantinople in 1204 or possibly after it arrived in Athens, sent the cloth to his home, the chateau de Ray in the Haute-Saone near Besançon. This was sometime between 1206 and 1219. We know very little about it during the years that it was there except that it was kept in the chateau de Ray and sometimes displayed at the cathedral church of St. Etienne.
Why it is so Hard to Believe the Shroud is Real
I suspect that much of the reason we don’t accept the possibility that the shroud is real is because of its footprint in medieval Europe. Just as Crossan posits that Jesus was not buried because men like him who were crucified were usually not buried, even left on their crosses to be devoured by dogs, we can reconstruct a history of the shroud from likely plausibility. Should we not, however, try to stretch the envelope of our worldview, just as Aquinas did when he wondered if angels can go from one point to another without going through the in between? Should we not wonder that, if the shroud is really 2000 years old and that it is now in Turin, that it had to pass through the in between, which was medieval Europe. History that is far more credible than much of the history understood about Columbus seems to bear this out. If that is so, then Constantinople from 944 to 1204 was between Edessa and Europe. Perhaps Edessa was in between Jerusalem and Constantinople.
Unless we know that our worldview of history is absolutely correct, we should not let it rule what we will consider. And the same must be said for science, particularly science used by history. Most of us, when hearing that something has been dated by some scientific method assume that the results are definitive. It is the gospel truth. It is science, after all.
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