Where was the Shroud from 1204 to 1357?

We know that the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade looted the treasures of Constantinople and carried away many riches and relics. The Edessa Cloth disappeared with other priceless treasures. Evidence suggests that the Edessa Cloth was taken to Athens. About a year after Constantinople was plundered, Theodore Ducas Anglelos wrote in a letter to Pope Innocent III:

The Venetians partitioned the treasure of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of saints and the 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 and France and in other places, the sacred linen in Athens. 

In 1207, Nicholas d'Orrante, Abbott of Casole and the Papal Legate in Athens, wrote about relics taken from Constantinople by French knights. Referring specifically to burial cloths, he mentions seeing them "with our own eyes" in Athens. 

There is some indication that the Shroud may have passed into the hands of an order of warrior monks known as the Knights Templar. This order was founded in the early 12th century among Crusaders in the Holy Land.

Ian Wilson and John C. Iannone relate stories that link the Edessa Cloth to the Marquis Boniface de Montferrat who led the attack on the Bucholean Palace and Pharos Chapel in Constantinople where the cloth was kept; how when it appeared in Athens it was in the trust of Otto de la Roche, an associate of Boniface; and how it may have passed into the hands to the Knights Templar from there. They go on to relate how the knights were later accused of secret idol worship of a "bearded head." We know, also, that the Templars had amassed a significant cache of relics from the Crusades. 

The Shroud's history suffers from gaps in documentation. This is true of almost all ancient artifact. There are plausible reasons why the Shroud may have been concealed from public knowledge. In Jerusalem, it would likely have been sought out and destroyed by the Temple authority had its very existence been known. While that is conjecture, it is nonetheless a possible explanation why no early mention is made of it. 

During the many persecutions of the first three centuries valuable relics, writings and ceremonial items of the church were routinely destroyed. We know of early persecutions of Jesus' post-crucifixion followers in Jerusalem. There is evidence of persecutions in Edessa as early as the latter part of the first century. And there were the numerous Roman persecutions that persisted until Constantine. If, in fact, the Shroud was taken to Abgar V of Edessa, it might have been hidden in the city walls as early as the reign of Ma'nu VI who is thought to have reverted to paganism. 

If the Templars obtained the Edessa Cloth in Constantinople, in Athens, or later, it is perfectly reasonable to think that they might have concealed it. We know that they were a powerful, rich and secretive organization. Under Phillip IV of France, efforts to suppress their power and acquire their assets resulted in extraordinary charges being leveled against them, including secret rituals of worshipping an image with a bearded man's face. In 1307, the leaders of the Templars, were executed. One of the leaders was a knight called Geoffrey de Charny, possibly a relative of the Geoffrey de Charny who displayed the Shroud in Lirey in 1357 and was reluctant to explain where it came from.

Attempts to fill the gaps from legend and possible scenarios is but theory and plausible explanations. It is not history. It is science that comes to the rescue with hard evidence that the Shroud was at one time in Jerusalem and in the environs of Constantinople and Edessa. It is the study of textiles that identify the cloth as like those once used at Masada that link the Shroud to that period and place in history. Art history strongly corroborates connections between the Edessa Cloth and the Shroud. And the Sudarium of Oviedo adds another piece to the puzzle of the Shroud's history. We can conclude, with a high degree of certainty, historically, that the Shroud dates to the sixth century. Likely, it goes back to Jerusalem in the first century. We just cannot be sure exactly where it has been and when before the fourteenth century.

---

 

Shroud Story  

© 2004 Daniel R. Porter, Bronxville, New York

TOPICS ON THIS WEBSITE:

• POLLEN AND FLOWERS  The work of Dr. Avinoam Danin, a botany professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Uri Baruch, a pollen specialist at the Israel Antiquities Authority is highly significant. Pollen grains and flower images show that the cloth was at one time in the Jerusalem environs as well as the Anatolia area of Turkey that includes the cities of Constantinople and Edessa.  
• 3D ENCODING   The image is actually a 3-D encoded chart of the front and back of a man that also happens to have the important characteristics of a photographic negative. This unique dual quality may help theoretical physicists understand how the image was created.
• AN IMAGE OF PIXELS  The image is very faint and composed of discolored lengths of fibers that have been chemically altered (dehydrated, oxidized and conjugated). Scientists call the lengths of discolored fibers: pixels. Different shades of yellow in the image are achieved by the number of pixels in an area in very much the same way as half tone photographs are printed in newspapers. Pixels are only to be found in the topmost layers of the cloth. 
• THE EDESSA CLOTH  Until 1204 CE, when crusaders sacked Constantinople, there was in that city, a picture of Jesus on a piece of cloth. It had been moved there from the city of Edessa in 944 where it was discovered in the city walls in 544. Historians think that the Edessa Cloth, also known as the Mandylion, is what we now call the Shroud of Turin. 
•  IT IS NOT A WORK OF ART  Chemists and art scholars have ruled out the possibility that the Shroud is a painting or any other known form of art, including photography. 
• THE CARBON 14 TESTS  Scientists, who have examined the evidence, seriously question results  of 1988 carbon 14 tests that determined that the Shroud had a medieval origin. Contrary to popular belief, carbon 14 testing is not always right. Too many variables, including contamination, could have skewed the results. 
• THE SUDARIUM  Since the eighth century, there has been in Oviedo, Spain, an ancient piece of linen known as the Sudarium. Blood stains and forensic analysis link it to the Shroud. 
• ABOUT THE CLOTH  The Shroud is an old, blood-stained piece of linen with traces of dirt. The historical  nature of the cloth, the peculiarities of the blood stains, and the particles of travertine aragonite limestone dirt that suggest an origin in Jerusalem, are all significant to understanding the Shroud's origins.
• AN ART CONNECTION  Scholars have found an amazing connection between the Shroud and depictions of Christ. These depictions date back as far as the sixth century.
•   NATURAL CAUSE EXPLANATIONS  Scientist do not know how the image was created. Having ruled out a work of art, they also rule out most natural causes known to science at this time. 
• FORENSICS SCIENCE  Twentieth century forensic medical science tells us that the image on the Shroud is an anatomically correct picture of man in a state of rigor mortis who was tortured and crucified. The blood stains are realistic to the point that only modern-day pathologists would know how to explain them.
• THE MISSING YEARS  If the Shroud is indeed the Edessa Cloth, as most Shroud scholars now believe, then what happened to it after the sack of Constantinople? 
• THE SHROUD'S LATER HISTORY  The Shroud was displayed in Lirey, France in the 1350's. Later, moved to Chambery, France it was almost destroyed in a fire in 1532. It is now in Turin, Italy. Nothing in its later history has been more significant than a century of research since Secondo Pia's amazing discovery of its negative image properties in 1898. 
• POSSIBLE COINS OVER THE EYES  It seems that there is something over the eyes. It is quite possible that coins were placed on the eyelids to keep the man's eyes closed. This was a common burial practice. There is some evidence that these may be coins that were struck about 30 CE.