The Turin Shroud and the Templars

Revision of an earlier article. 

 Mary Magdalene came to the tomb of Christ three days after the Crucifixion. According to John's gospel, she found the stone removed from the tomb's entrance, and rushed to fetch the disciples Peter and John. So they ran both together: and that other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulcher. And he stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloth lying, yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen cloth lie, And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in that other disciple… and he saw and believed. John, 20, 4 to 8. 

 A shroud relic has been housed in the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, since 1578. It has long been venerated as the burial cloth of Christ. It appears to be imprinted with his image, bearing the marks of torture and crucifixion. To many the shroud is a disturbing and fascinating object, with an air of mystery that captures the imagination. But could the shroud have genuinely supernatural origins? Could some charge of divine energy have burnt this image onto the material, at the moment of Christ's Resurrection? Did the disciples find this relic in the empty tomb, and pass it down to be held in reverence through the ages? In 1988, with the Church's permission, a small sample of the Turin Shroud was removed for scientific tests. The results of the radiocarbon dating placed the shroud between AD 1260 and 1390, indicating that the relic was a medieval fabrication.

The white linen shroud measures 14 ft 6 inches by 3 ft 7 inches. It bears the image of a man, 6ft tall and well built, with long hair and a short beard. The faint image is a yellowish brown in colour. It shows the full length of the man's body; front and back, as if the long, narrow cloth had been folded over his head. There is, however, an absence of 'globing' the distortions that would have resulted if the shroud had wrapped around a real 3d body- supposing that this was what caused the discolouring.) Moreover one would expect a burial should to be wrapped around a body, rather than folded over one. Even if the acids, blood etc on the body did leave discolour the cloth with which it came into contact, it would hardly make for a recognizable print of a man. 

 Since the carbon dating, various theorists have tried to account for how an object with such markings could have been created in the Middle Ages. The shroud came to light in the mid 14th century, when Geoffrey de Charney, a French noble, had it exhibited in Lirey. Doubts about the relic's authenticity are nothing new. In 1389 the Bishop of Troyes denounced the shroud as a fake, which he alleged was painted in about 1355. The shroud, however, does not seem to be a painting in the traditional sense. There are no brush-marks, and no pigments are in evidence in the context of the image. Neither are there any medieval artistic stylisation.

  The shroud survived into the modern age, and was first photographed in 1898. When the photographer, Seconda Pia, developed the pictures, a revelation resulted. The photographic negative showed the shroud with a perfect, three-dimensional positive image. The shroud itself is therefore a perfect negative. There is no precedent for a medieval artist painting such a thing. 

 The South African Art Historian Dr Nicholas Allen suggested that the shroud itself is in fact an early form of photograph; made by soaking the sheet in silver sulphate solution to make the fabric light sensitive. Of necessity, a body (or a painting of one) would have been suspended before the sheet (twice in order to get both views) to achieve this, with lenses positioned between. This set up would have needed to be left for several days, while the surface reacted with ultra-violet rays. This seems hardly a satisfactory explanation for the shroud, though. There are no other examples of medieval photography. 

 Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in their book 'The Hiram Key' propound the notion that the Knights Templar were both the heirs to the ancient Essene sect and the forerunners of the Freemasons. They wrote that the Templars revived an Essene ritual involving symbolic resurrection of the dead, and incorporated it into their secret initiation rites. Props used in the ceremony included a shroud, skull and bones. Guillaume de Paris, the Grand Inquisitor, swooped on the Paris Temple in 1307, to arrest the Templars there (his master, King Philip IV, having decided to suppress the Templars on charges of unholy worship). Knight and Lomas speculated that the Inquisitor and his men found the shroud the Templars used in the rite, in a Templar shrine filled 'with anti-Christian ornamentation: pyramids with eyes at their centre, a star studded roof and the square and compass…' Concluding that Jacques de Molay, must be a terrible heretic indeed, the Inquisitor tortured the Grand Master there and then in his own dungeons. The Inquisitor had his men crucify de Molay, and thus secured the Grand Master's confession, then he wrapped de Molay in the shroud. This was the real, forgotten origin of the Turin Shroud, or so Knight and Lomas argued. 

 Knight and Lomas' flight of fancy is without evidential support. There was no such occult decoration in the Paris Temple, and the only questionable item uncovered by the arresting agents appears to have been a female skull in a reliquary, not that the keeping of such relics was unusual at the time. There is no evidence that Jacques de Molay was ever crucified. He may have suffered some maltreatment before he first confessed, but if he had been crucified it would surely have provoked widespread outrage. When he made his final declaration of Templar innocence of heresy, he said that those who confessed had done so through fear of torture. If he (or any other Templar) had been crucified, then de Molay would surely have included this detail in his last defiant speech. Any theory claiming that the Turin Shroud ever touched the body of a real crucified man, moreover, has to surmount the globing distortion problem- there should be some! 

 Nonetheless, it is possible there was some Templar connection to the Turin Shroud. In 1357, as noted, the relic was in the possession of a noble called Geoffrey de Charney. Another, earlier Geoffrey de Charney had been the Templar Preceptor of Normandy. He was arrested alongside de Molay in 1307, and like him confessed to heresy. In 1314, when De Molay publicly retracted his confession, Geoffrey de Charney showed solidarity; and was burned with him at the stake by a vengeful King Philip IV on an island on the Seine. If the Geoffrey de Charney who was in possession of the Shroud in 1357 was a relative of the Preceptor of Normandy, his namesake, immolated in 1314, then a Templar connection seems a tennable proposition. 

 The Crusaders were zealously devoted to a large fragment of the 'True Cross', which they found in Jerusalem, and lost at the battle of Hattin in 1185. Other supposed relics from the Passion of Christ were important to Medieval Catholics too. The Veil of Veronica, for example, was a relic reputedly marked with the face of Jesus, after she wiped his face with it on the path to Golgotha. There was a contender for the Holy Lance of Longinus (that pierced Jesus' side) at Constantinople, while another Holy Lance was unearthed by the knights of the First Crusade at Antioch. Louis IX of France, meanwhile, would own a contenders for the Crown of Thorns (bought from a cash-strapped Latin Emperor of Constantinople- Byzantium having fallen to French Crusaders and Venetians in 1204). There were various places boasting Holy Nails, too. That some relics were faked seems obvious. 

 After the mid 14th century, the history of the Turin Shroud is well recorded. It emerged in 1357, and it was taken to Chambéry some time after 1453. In 1578 it was taken to its present home. At various times it has been shown publicly, during religious festivals, inspiring a frenzy of adoration from pilgrims. In 1610 it was exhibited in Turin and Vercelli, to mark the Beatification of Carlo Borromeo. It visited Torrione castle where Giovanni Battista Della Rovere depicted it in fresco, held by Duke Almedo IX of Savoy, and the Blessed Carlo Borromeo, with the Black Virgin of Opora between them. (The same artist painted a 'Descent from the Cross' showing Christ being enshrouded.) 

 Some evidence has been presented supposedly indicating that the relic existed before the 1350s. There is a small manuscript in Budapest (known as the Pray Codex), dating to the 1190s. A crude illustration shows Christ being taken down from the cross and placed in a shroud. The dead Chris is shown naked with arms crossed at the wrists and thumbs hidden, just as the figure in the shroud is. (This pose of the suffering Christ was replicated in Byzantine iconography of a type known as the Man of Sorrows). Below the burial scene is a depiction of the 'three Maries' encountering the angel and finding the shroud in the empty tomb. It has been claimed that the shroud in the lower illustration features a distinctive detail: a group of four small round holes in an 'L' formation. The same group of holes may be seen in the Turin Shroud (and also on a drawing of the shroud in Liege, Belgium, dating to 1516, predating the fire that burned additional holes into the fabric). Closer examination, however, reveals that the lower illustration in the Pray Manuscript may not in fact show the burial cloth but the dislodged slab covering the tomb of Christ. This becomes clear comparing the illustration with other iconography of the same scene. (The shroud is not the long oblong shape, as some have thought, but a small crumpled thing in the middle). 

 It has been said that if the shroud was faked between 1260 and 1390, then the forger must have been some genius; able to produce handiwork that withstands space age forensic scrutiny. Scientific tests by the STURP started in 1978 and supposedly concluded that the image on the shroud was probably made by contact with a body. They also identified a supposed stain of human blood on the fabric. Other scientists found the shroud to contain limestone dust seemingly from Palestine and pollens possibly from that region and also from Turkey. Recent examination of the shroud, prior to it's being hermetically sealed in a special container, revealed a tiny seam in the weave of the linen. This feature was similar to a seam found in a cloth excavated from Masada, a mountain fortress in the Holy Land that fell to the Romans in AD70 effectively marking the end of the Jewish Revolt. Apparently no such stitching has been found in the medieval era. Another notable feature is the fact that the wounds from nails of crucifixion, evident in the shroud image, pierce the man's wrists and ankles rather than his palms and feet. Some believe this better reflects the crucifixion method practiced by the Romans. 

 If the shroud was not forged for Geoffrey de Charney, in the 1530s, then how his family came by the object is a mystery. In 1453, the Duke of Savoy obtained the relic. His heirs moved it to a chapel in Chambéry in Southern France. Whilst there, the shroud was damaged in a fire in 1532, and was lucky to survive. The silver plate on the reliquary in which it was stored began to melt, and molten silver dripped through the folded shroud leaving rough, triangular holes with blackened edges. Faint water stains on the shroud do not correspond with these, though, so clearly had nothing to do with extinguishing the fire. It seems from the positions of the water marks that, in an earlier period, the shroud was folded up a different way, and possibly stored in a tall clay jar (similar to those in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found), which collected water at the base. Some have been tempted to interpret this as additional evidence of a first-century origin for the relic. 

 The sample of the shroud analysed in 1988 was cut from one of the corners. Another theory, that could make the shroud older than the carbon dating indicates, has it that the sampled section was contaminated. A repair around the 16th century saw the linen fabric being spliced with cotton. Only testing on samples from other areas of the shroud can clear this matter up. Additional support for an earlier date for the Shroud of Turin, meanwhile, is supposed to come from a less famous relic in Northern Spain. Oviedo Cathedral houses a wooden chest covered in silver, called the Arca Santa. It contains various reputed holy relics, including an object called the the Sudarium Domini. The Sudaruim is a humble, bloodstained rag. It is held to be the napkin cloth that was wrapped around Christ's head after his body was taken from the cross and before it was entombed. Unlike the Turin Shroud, the Sudarium appears to have an documented attestation in late antiquity. It was first mentioned in 570 AD, in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Early Christians took away for safety in AD644, at the time of a Persians invasion under Chosreos II. They took it to Alexandria, and then to Spain. It was moved north from Toledo, in 718, to Oviedo, ahead of the Muslim advance. The ancient wooden ark was given silver plating with Romanesque ornamentation. 

Tests on the blood on the Sudarium have revealed it to be of the same rare AB type as the blood found on the Turin Shroud. Investigators have also postulated that the patterns of blood on the Sudarium correspond to wounds evident on the figure in the shroud, although how this can be reliable or scientific given the thorny issue of globing is for them to explain. The pollen found in the Sudarium confirms its documented wanderings, through Egypt and Spain. The pollens identified in the Turin Shroud hint at a different story. Pollens from Turkey may have arrived via later contamination, but could indicate that the shroud itself was once in that region. Some identify it with a Byzantine relic, much famed in past times, called the Mandylion. This seems doubtful, however, for the Mandylion cloth was supposedly marked only with the face of Christ- it was supposedly the Veil of St Veronica. It was recorded as being in Edessa in the 500s AD. The face in the shroud does resemble various copies of the lost Mandylion, the face that informed the popular image of Jesus. 

The Mandylion was taken to Constantinople in 944, and probably looted from there after 1204, when the French knights of the Fourth Crusade sacked the city. They and the Venetians looted much treasure, including religious relics. According to a letter written by Theodore Ducas Angelos to Pope Innocent III in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, the loot included 'most sacred of all the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before his resurrection' Theodore hinted that the Shroud had been taken to Athens. 

The Templars were not recorded as being militarily active in the Fourth Crusade. Many regarded as scandalous when the Crusaders diverted towards Byzantium. The Pope himself was originally furious. As Helen Nicholson has discovered, there was at least one Templar in the retinue of the Crusade's leader and later 'Latin Emperor of Constantinople' Baldwin of Flanders. This Templar, Brother Barozzi, acted as a messenger between Baldwin and the Pope. He was charged at one stage with delivering gifts including plundered relics to the Pope, no doubt to mollify Innocent's anger and to buy his endorsement of the regime change. Barozzi also received gifts on behalf of the Templars- indicating if nothing else that the Templars were not averse to the idea of laying their hands on formerly Byzantine relics and treasures. These did not include the Shroud, in this instance and at any rate, and Barozzi was robbed of these treasures by Genoese merchants. 

 Some speculate that the Mandylion fell into the Templars hands, and inspired the rumours that they worshipped an idol in the form of a head. The head painted on a board, found half a century ago in Templecombe in the South West of England (where there was a Templar Preceptory) bears a resemblance to the Mandylion, and indeed to the head of the shroud. The Templars and Hospitallers both associated themselves with the Holy Sepulchre, and both acted as escorts to the 'True Cross' when it was carried abroad. Both also escorted a vial of Christ's Blood from the Holy Land to England in the 1250s, so clearly both took an interest in relics of the Passion. 

 There is additional evidence of the Knights Templar possessing the shroud. The Templars' secrecy rendered them vulnerable to accusations of heresy. The order, as we have seen, was suppressed in the 1300s and the brethren subjected to a widespread heresy trial. Confession were secured, often through torture by Inquisitors and royal agents, and were recorded by clerical notaries. The confessions described depraved induction rituals and the adoration of idols. Vatican researcher Barbara Frale has recently discovered another confession that stands apart and seems to support the idea that the Templars possessed the Holy Shroud itself. The deposition was that a French Templar named Arnaut Sabbatiere (or Sabatier), describing his initiation, which had taken place in 1287: "(I was) shown a long piece of linen on which was impressed the figure of a man and told to worship it, kissing the feet three times," said the document. ( Telegraph, 6 April 2009 see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/5113711/Knights-Templar-worshipped-the-Turin-Shroud.html ) 

 If the Templars had indeed possessed this self-same relic, it is curious that they did not advertise it in order to draw pilgrims. Still, theirs was a clandestine brotherhood, and it cannot be ruled out that they were secretly the guardians of the shroud. Not everyone was so ready to exploit the Holy Relics they possessed. Some relics were indeed guarded tacitly. The Templars may have obtained the shroud from Athens. If the story of it being there is not true, though, then it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the Templars found the shroud during their sojourn in Jerusalem. Others propose that they inherited it from the heretical Cathars, who may have inherited it from Gnostic Christians in the near east. There were stories of the last Cathars smuggling a great treasure away from their stronghold at Montsegur in 1244, before embracing martyrdom at the hands of their Catholic persecutors. Certainly the shroud found its way to France by some means if it was not created there. 

 There are those who think that the Shroud of Turin should be tested again, to see if it can be induced to give up more of its secrets. I find myself more sceptical about its earlier origins than I was before, having been persuaded that the Pray manuscript is not valid as supporting evidence. Any suggestions that the shroud's image is the result of contact with a human body, would have to account for the the lack of warping. I originally concluded my essay saying that perhaps the shroud should be left alone to preserve its mystery, but am now of the opinion that further scientific analysis and historical study is needed to determine its origins. Taking into account the testimony uncovered by Barbara Frale, it is clearly more than idle speculation to think that the object may have passed through the hands of the Knights Templar.