In a recent article, historian Nicolas Sarzeaud, a researcher in the Université Catholique of Louvain, presented a passage he attributed to the philosopher Nicole Oresme around 1370 as the earliest written mention of the Shroud of Turin and argued that Oresme cited it as a patent example of clerical fraud, according to IFLScience. “This article is the result of the discovery of a new, older source,” said Sarzeaud.
Sarzeaud used Oresme’s passage to reject the Shroud’s authenticity. “Oresme asserts: ‘I do not need to believe anyone who claims: ‘Someone performed such miracle for me’, because many clergymen thus deceive others, in order to elicit offerings for their churches. This is clearly the case for a church in Champagne, where it was said that there was the shroud of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the almost infinite number of those who have forged such things, and others,’” said Sarzeaud. “What makes Oresme’s writing stand out is his attempt to provide rational explanations for unexplained phenomena, rather than interpreting them as divine or demonic,” said Sarzeaud.
Sarzeaud argued that Oresme wrote during a time of religious mysticism and said popular religious claims should be subjected to rigorous testing. The fragment pushed the written record of the Shroud back to around 1370, indicating that a shroud was fraudulently presented as authentic in Lirey and that this news reached Paris. Sarzeaud said Oresme likely learned about the Lirey fraud while serving as a royal counselor in the 1350s. “This allowed Oresme to cite it in one of his books, confident that his readers would understand what he was talking about,” said Andrea Nicolotti, professor of History of Christianity and Churches at the University of Turin. “With this document, the story we already knew from other sources is perfectly confirmed,” said Nicolotti.
The first historical record of the Shroud dates to 1354, when it belonged to the knight Geoffroi de Charnay; questions about its authenticity arose as early as 1355. In 1389, a memorandum to Pope Clement VII declared the Shroud counterfeit, though Enikos reported that no record existed in the Vatican archives showing it was sent to the pope. “Cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who painted it,” said at that time Bishop Pierre d’Arcis of Troyes. The Shroud was exhibited in Lirey until about 1355 and d’Arcis ordered its removal after inquiries described staged miracles and paid actors; later, Clement VII allowed it to be exhibited again only as a representation of the authentic Shroud.
The Shroud is a 4.26-meter linen cloth that believers said was wrapped around the crucified body of Jesus Christ; it contains a faint image some claimed showed the face of Jesus, complete with crown of thorns and stains believed to be blood. The artifact remained controversial for centuries and two thousand years of history and a century of scientific inquiry point away from authenticity.
Multiple scientific efforts examined the cloth. In 1988, three teams conducted radiocarbon dating that yielded a 95 percent confidence range of 1260–1390 CE for the linen. “These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval,” stated the study. “The simplest, albeit the dullest, conclusion to reach is that the shroud’s age is its historic age,” said one team. Some researchers argued the sample could have come from a repaired area or that contamination, including from a 1532 fire in Chambéry or carbon monoxide, altered the result, though tests with other cloths did not show a significant impact on radiocarbon dating.
Other studies focused on blood-flow and crucifixion patterns. One team used a mannequin and a volunteer, pumping blood and releasing it at wound points to test flow patterns, and concluded the patterns were not consistent with crucifixion, whether a T-shaped or Y-shaped cross was involved. A recent three-dimensional analysis in Archaeometry concluded the cloth was wrapped around a sculpture. At the same time, the Shroud’s image remained, scientifically speaking, an unsolved phenomenon.
The 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project concluded that the image was not created by pigment, stain, dye, paint, or any known artistic method, and that whatever made the image was not deposited on the cloth but was a discoloration of the linen fibers themselves. The image is a photographic-negative-like image encoded with three-dimensional information, that many attempts to reproduce fell short. Physicist and project leader John Jackson cataloged 17 characteristics that any explanation needed to address.
The Blaze challenged Sarzeaud’s reliance on the d’Arcis memorandum and his reading of Oresme, arguing that the memorandum rested on hearsay and existed in two differing drafts later conflated by Ulysse Chevalier, and that work since the radiocarbon test cast doubt on its validity. The outlet contended that the new Oresme fragment did not tip the balance toward the forgery theory and that Oresme’s comment was historically interesting but not determinative.
The preparation of this article relied on a news-analysis system.