A relic housed in a chapel in Turin (or Turino), Italy, and believed by some to be the shroud in which Jesus was wrapped after his crucifixion. In the accounts of Jesus' burial in the Christian New Testament, the earliest of which appears in the Gospel of Mark 15:46, it is noted, "And he [Joseph of Arimathea] brought fine linen, and took him [Jesus] down and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock…." There is no record of the survival of that burial cloth for the next five centuries. Then about 570 C.E. , a pilgrim reported that it was kept in a monastery by the river Jordan. In 670 C.E. the French bishop Arculph, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was shipwrecked on the coast of Scotland and traveled to a monastery on the island of Iona. Here he said he had seen the shroud and been allowed to kiss it.
Subsequent references are made to a surviving shroud by the Venerable Bede, St. Willibald, St. John Damascene, and the Emperor Baldwin. In 1284, Robert de Clari, chronicler of the Fourth Crusade, described the triumphant entry of Crusaders into Constantinople and mentioned the monastery of Lady St. Mary of the Blachernes, in which a cloth claiming to be the shroud was kept. In the Middle Ages some 40 different shrouds were claimed to be the one in which Christ was buried. At this time there also existed a variety of similar relics, including tears from Jesus, milk from the Virgin Mary, thorns from the crown of thorns worn by Jesus, and enough pieces of the cross to make a number of different such instruments of execution. The reformation of the church concerning such superstitions began in earnest in the sixteenth century and continued in subsequent centuries.
Nothing is known of the particular piece of cloth known as the Shroud of Turin until its appearance in the church of Lirey, Troyes, France, during the fourteenth century. At the time between 1353 and 1356, the shroud was placed in a small wooden church at Lirey by Geoffrey de Charny, Lord of Lirey, but exhibition of the relic aroused opposition from Henry of Poitiers, Bishop of Troyes. Many years later, in 1389, the Lord of Lirey's son (Geoffrey II) obtained permission to exhibit the shroud, but Henry's successor as bishop of Troyes, Pierre d'Arcis, objected most strenuously.
In a statement to the Avignon Pope Clement VII, he complained that the exhibition was not for devotion, but for monetary gain, and that the relic was a forgery, "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 the front, [the canons at Lirey] falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Saviour Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb." D'Arcis claimed that Henry of Poitiers, 30 years earlier, after "diligent inquiry and examination" had established that the shroud had been "cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist … that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought …" and that the first exhibition by Geoffrey's father had been prohibited.
Meanwhile, however, Geoffrey's widow had married Aymon of Geneva, who had ecclesiastical influence with Pope Clement, and the prohibition was bypassed, much to the anger of d'Arcis, hence his complaint in 1389. Pope Clement resolved the matter by declaring that Geoffrey II could continue exhibiting the shroud provided that it was always stated that it was only "a figure or representation" of Christ's cloth, and that d'Arcis must keep silence in the matter under pain of excommunication.
This affair has often been revived as "proof" that the shroud was a forgery, but the accusations of d'Arcis were never proved, and the original campaign against the genuineness of the shroud had started on the somewhat flimsy grounds that if such a cloth imprinted with an image of Jesus Christ had really existed, it would have been mentioned in the Gospels, and that the exhibition at Lirey was all part of a plot to hire persons for pretended miracles of healing. The statement that diligent inquiry had revealed a cunning artist remains unconvincing, since the artist was never named or punished.
After the death of Geoffrey II, his widow Margaret claimed that the relic had only been loaned to Lirey by her grandfather, but she was eventually obliged to give it up.
In 1452, it passed into the keeping of the Duke of Savoy. In 1532 it was kept in the sacristy of Sainte Chappelle, France, where it was nearly destroyed in a fire. It was then taken to the monastery of St. Clair where it was patched by nuns. It was brought to Saint Charles Borromeo in Turin, Italy, in 1578, and for more than four centuries remained the property of the ruling House of Savoy from which came the kings of Italy. It was exhibited annually until it was feared that frequent handling might damage it. By the end of the nineteenth century it was exhibited only on very special occasions.
In 1946, Umberto II, former king of Italy and the owner of the shroud, was exiled. He settled in Portugal and in the ensuing years, the Catholic Church, in the person of the archbishop of Turin, became its custodian. In 1978 it was disclosed that Umberto was leaving the shroud to the Pope, an event that occurred in 1983 with Umberto's passing. Italy did not challenge the will or claim the shroud for itself. Since that time, the Roman Catholic Church has had the power to respond directly to pressure to have the shroud definitively tested by modern scientific methods.
Description of the Shroud
The shroud always had vague markings indicating the outlines of a body, but these took on a special significance only at the end of the nineteenth century. Modern interest in the shroud dates from 1898, when Secundo Pia obtained permission to photograph it for the first time and discovered that his negative plate revealed a perfect image of a noble and majestic face with forehead wounds suggesting a crown of thorns, and a body with wounds in the hands and side.
The supposition is that in some unknown way, emanations from the body laid in the shroud reacted with the spices used for burial in such a way as to cause an image on the cloth, rather like a photographic negative. Although the shroud had been venerated for centuries, nobody had formerly realized that the markings might be more revealing than supposed. Pia's negative plate showed a positive picture, virtually a full-length photograph of the occupant of the shroud.
The publication of Pia's negative caused great excitement, and led to a scientific investigation by Paul Vignon, professor of Biology at the Institut Catholique in Paris. With his coworker Yves Delage he presented his findings, favorable to the authenticity of the shroud, to the French Academy of Science. The collaboration was a strange one, since Delage was an agnostic and Vignon a Catholic. Since then, the shroud has received increased attention and scholarship, and Vatican experts spent some years studying and verifying historical documents connected with it.
On September 6, 1936, Pope Pius XI offered his opinion of the cloth, "These are the images of the Divine Redeemer. We might say they are the most beautiful, most moving and dearest we can imagine."
The name sindonology has been given to studies of the shroud, and in 1939 the first Sindonological Congress was held in Turin. The Centro Internazionale di Sindonologia was created, drawing upon the highest academic, scientific, and ecclesiastical authorities.
In August 1978, the Holy Shroud was publicly exhibited again in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy. Because Turin had been a flashpoint for Red Brigade terrorism, special precautions were taken to protect the relic. In addition to extra police protection, the shroud itself was housed in a special display case with bulletproof glass. Archbishop Anastasio Ballestrero of Turin insisted that the shroud not be the subject of any form of commercialism, and the cost of the new protective case was born by a Turin exposition fund launched in the United States.
In October 1978, at the end of the exposition, a special Shroud Congress was held in Turin and attended by scientists from around the world. Advanced techniques of image analysis were discussed, including infra-red photography, photomicrography, high contrast photography, X-ray fluorescence, radiographic examination, and carbon dating.
Unfortunately much of the scientific analysis and discussion resulted in controversy and confusion. Many issues were hotly debated, such as whether the amount of iron oxide on the shroud indicated genuine bloodstains or artistic pigment. The main issue of dating the shroud was delayed through the reluctance of the authorities to permit destruction of a sample piece of the material for carbon dating. For a presentation of scientific views for and against the authenticity of the shroud, see the book The Image on the Shroud by H. David Sox (1981) and more recently The Mysterious Shroud by Ian Wilson (1986).
A significant breakthrough in the study of the shroud occurred in early 1987, when Pope John Paul II finally approved a plan to test fragments of the cloth in laboratories for radio-carbon content. Tests had been scheduled to begin in 1986, but were halted at the last minute by the Bishop of Turin.
Three major laboratories—in Switzerland, the United States, and Britain—were involved in these carbon-14 dating tests. Three other institutions were involved in statistical analysis of the results of tests, which included scientific controls using pieces of linen from known sources, ancient and modern. These included fragments of medieval cloth and a specimen from ancient Egypt, as well as modern cloth. The scientists involved did not know which cloth they were being provided with for testing until the results were correlated by the British Museum Research Laboratory and evaluated at the Vatican in Rome.
Edward Hall, of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and Art at Oxford University, England, was one of the scientists involved in testing. He used an Accelerator Mass Spectrometer, generating a charge of two million volts. This massive new tool for radio-carbon dating is said to have influenced the Vatican decision to go ahead with the tests on actual fragments of the Turin Shroud. Earlier apparatus would have required the destruction of a sample about the size of a pocket handkerchief, whereas the new machine required a sample of only about a quarter of an inch.
In a report by Pearson Phillips in The Times, London, (April 15, 1987), Hall was quoted as stating: "If we get a medieval dating then we shall know it is a forgery and we can relax and forget the whole business. Although there will still be a mystery about how anyone in medieval times could have produced such a complex and effective fraud." Hall assumed an agnostic viewpoint, stating: "My view of Christ as a historical individual is that he was obviously a powerful personality. I suppose it is possible that, in some way we do not currently fully understand, some kind of impression from him was transferred to the shroud. But if we produce a carbon date around the start of the first century A.D. , the fat will really be in the fire. As a scientist, I would then find it difficult to dismiss the shroud's authenticity."
An official report on October 13, 1988, revealed that the three laboratories in Oxford, Zürich, and Arizona had independently carbon dated the cloth fragments as medieval, and not from the time of Jesus Christ. There was close agreement on the possible dates, giving an estimated span of circa 1260-1390. For most skeptics, this established once and for all that the shroud was a medieval forgery.
Die-hard believers in the authenticity of the shroud either questioned the accuracy of the scientific evidence or propounded fantastic theories to account for the dating of the cloth, e.g., that the image was formed by a burst of divine radiant energy that somehow altered the texture of the cloth.
The close concurrence in dating of three independent scientific laboratories, with the best and most accurate apparatus, cannot be dismissed lightly. The normal margin of error in carbon dating is considered to be about 100 years either way.
It is unlikely that these tests can resolve the enigma of the shroud. Critics of the carbon testing have noted that scientific tests of any kind sometimes overlook anomalies revealed by later research. In the case of the dating of the shroud, there is no reason to doubt the good faith and accuracy of reputable scientific laboratories, but it is good to remember that the centuries-old shroud has been through many vicissitudes, and we are dealing with minute fragments of material.
In 1532, for example, when the shroud was kept in a silver casket at the church of Sainte Chappelle in Chambery, France, a fire broke out in the sacristy, melting drops of silver, which fell on the shroud and burned through folds in the cloth. In 1534, the burns on the cloth were patched by nuns at the monastery of St. Clair. The shroud has also suffered damp stains, and may have been washed or cleaned with oil at some time. Could the samples tested for carbon dating have been contaminated with threads or solutions from the later history of the shroud?
Moreover, carbon dating, accurate or misleading, cannot explain the extraordinary and awe-inspiring character of the image on the shroud as disclosed by the camera negative of Secondo Pia in 1898. There are no apparent brush marks, and other theories of production of the marks, however ingenious, hardly do justice to the beauty and accuracy of the icon. Common sense suggests that even a medieval forger of genius would be unlikely to have the prescience to produce a perfect and noble image in negative. What the pilgrims of that period in an out-of-the-way French district would surely have expected to see would have been a stylized rudimentary positive image, more like the icons in stained glass windows or the paintings in churches.
Dr. Robert Otlet, of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, had hoped that his famous laboratory would be included in the carbon dating tests, and later commented: "It is most unfortunate—entirely unnecessary when you put the amount of material to be taken in context. It will lead to a result which will be wide open to criticism and sadly will not be seen as definitive." It is clear that the story of the shroud has not come to an end. True believers in its authenticity have found ways to ignore and question the carbon dating evidence, while many fully accept the carbon dating results as conclusive.
Sources:
Barnes, Arthur Stapylton. The Holy Shroud of Turin. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1934.
Heller, John H. Report on the Shroud of Turin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983.
Nickell, Joe. Inquest on the Shroud of Turin. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Press, 1983.
Reban, John. Inquest on Jesus Christ. London: Leslie Frewin, 1967.
Rinaldi, Peter M. The Man in the Shroud. New York: Vantage Press, 1972. Reprint, London: Futura, 1974. Reprinted as It Is The Lord: A Study of the Shroud of Christ. New York: Warner, 1973.
Sox, H. David. The Image on the Shroud: Is the Turin Shroud a Forgery? London: Unwin, 1981.
——. The Shroud Unmasked; Uncovering the Greatest Forgery of All Time. Basingstoke, England: Lamp Press, 1988.
Stein, Gordon. Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993.
Vignon, Paul. The Shroud of Christ. London: Constable, 1902. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1970.
Walsh, John. The Mysterious Shroud. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986.
——. The Shroud. London: W. H. Allen, 1964.
Wilson, Ian. The Turin Shroud. London: Gollancz, 1978.
Wuenschel, Edward. Self-Portrait of Christ. New York: Esopus, 1954.
Zugibe, Frederick T. The Cross and the Shroud: a Medical Inquiry into the Crucifixion. New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1988.
