Miracle of the Shroud II: The Second Coming

[Charles Freeman]

I am in Bologna setting up an art history tour there for later this year and I have been looking at works of art from the fourteenth and fifteenth century that leave the Shroud well behind. The artist could not even imagine that the hair would have fallen back on a lying figure and instead copied a conventional ( since c.AD 300) figure of Christ's head as if he were standing. There is nothing in it that cannot be found elsewhere in this period.

Most of these painted linens deteriorated quickly if they were not placed on a backing. Folding and refolding usually broke up the painted surface and they were thrown away. The Shroud was not a top level quality cloth - just look at paintings that show clothes from this period.

Actually judging from the descriptions and depictions of the Shroud, the original images appear to have lasted well. Depictions from the nineteenth century ( e.g of the 1868 exposition) suggest that it was then that they deteriorated and features that we know were once there, like the long hair at the back, disappeared. It was just at this point too that the cathedral authorities put it in a frame for the first time. They were clearly worried about something.

If the Zittau Veil ( of 1472) in Zittau in Saxony, can be taken for comparison, once the pigments fall off a linen painting (in the case of the Zittau Veil they were steamed off by looters in WW II), there are shadowy images remaining in the cloth where the paint once was, just as one finds on the Shroud. What, subject to specialist support, I think we have is the discolouration of the linen as a result of centuries of being covered in paint. Walter McCrone who for obvious reasons has been much derided by the Shroudies but who was more expert in his field of microscopy than any of them, did indeed find traces of the original pigment on the Shroud surface.
None of the hundreds of so-called Shroud researchers has ever been able to find a scrap of evidence that dates the linen of the Shroud before the medieval period. This does not make the Shroud any less interesting as it may be the only surviving example of a grave cloth used in the Easter ceremony of Quem Queritis when a shroud was held up before the congregation on Easter morning to show that Christ had risen. We know that some were painted. I guess the Shroud was designed for a large congregation - perhaps in a church with a long nave and poor light. After all the figures are larger than life size for the medieval period and the artist made two of them, front and back ( but they do not match each other!),to make the cloth more visible from a distance.

It was this ability to see the Shroud from a distance that made it such an excellent relic for the Savoys as they could show it off before vast crowds. It may even have been repainted from time to time to keep it visible.

As I say whenever asked, the Shroud was never intended to deceive. No one in the medieval period would ever have been taken in by a grave cloth with images in it when none are mentioned in the gospels or medieval iconography. This is one of many so-called 'authentic' relics that started its life as something else and the de Charny family conspicuously failed to convince anyone that it was authentic.

We must get more medievalists working in the weave,painting techniques for linen and iconography. I am beginning to get some feedback from professional medievalists who are getting interested and we may at last be able to put this altogether. But we have a long way to go!

 

[Dinwar]

I'd add Charles Freeman's loom size and weave style arguments to Dinwar's list of evidence that the Shroud is a 14th century artifact.

Thank you! I had forgotten about those. My mistake, Charles Freeman; those are fantastic arguments!

 

[Olowkow]

Just out of idle curiosity, I wonder whether anyone has ever depicted or proposed that the original design of the Shroud of Turin was that it be hung vertically in the long dimension, supported by a horizontal staff in the center between the rear and front heads. This would permit worshipers to walk around the work of art and view front and rear as if it were the body of Christ floating upwards to Heaven. It would make more sense than displaying it horizontally as it usually has been portrayed. It would also account for the apparently anomalous gravity effects on the hair and the blood.

Placing candles between the sheets would give the images an eerie surreal effect, but would likely have been a fire hazard.

I am in Bologna setting up an art history tour there for later this year and I have been looking at works of art from the fourteenth and fifteenth century that leave the Shroud well behind. The artist could not even imagine that the hair would have fallen back on a lying figure and instead copied a conventional ( since c.AD 300) figure of Christ's head as if he were standing. There is nothing in it that cannot be found elsewhere in this period.....
<snipped for space>

Some people have all the fun!
Thanks for all the comments, particularly on the missing gesso. I wonder whether you have any opinion on the above post about hanging the Shroud vertically from a horizontal pole or beam. It could have even been ceremonially raised into a hidden heaven chamber in the ceiling using a system of ropes.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Some people have all the fun!
Thanks for all the comments, particularly on the missing gesso. I wonder whether you have any opinion on the above post about hanging the Shroud vertically from a horizontal pole or beam. It could have even been ceremonially raised into a hidden heaven chamber in the ceiling using a system of ropes.

The gesso is not "missing". The abundance of calcium carbonate in and on hte linen is what is left of it.

 

[hugh farey]

The artist ... copied a conventional (since c.AD 300) figure of Christ's head as if he were standing. There is nothing in it that cannot be found elsewhere in this period.

As you know, Charles, I am quite a fan of the Quem Quaeritis origin of the Shroud, but I must query the statement that anything similar can be found elsewhere. There may have been 'inverted' colour, double full-length, front-and-back images all over the place, but there is absolutely no evidence for that. While some aspects of the Shroud image can be found elsewhere (such as the Holkham bible), in general it is indeed unique.

The Shroud was not a top level quality cloth - just look at paintings that show clothes from this period.

From a linen point of view, with a thread count of 30/40 per cm and requiring a four-heddle loom, it's about as top level as linen for painting can get. Of course it's not silk, and it seems that even top quality painted linen was a 'cheap' substitute for embroidery, but its pretty good. Are there any better examples?

Depictions from the nineteenth century (e.g of the 1868 exposition) suggest that it was then that they deteriorated and features that we know were once there, like the long hair at the back, disappeared.

There seem to be two distinct artistic traditions, 'copies' which resemble the modern Shroud, and 'expositions' which have loincloths and feet turned outwards, which run simultaneously for 200 years. Neither gradual deterioration nor sporadic repainting adequately explain this, but for the life of me I have no better explanation.

They were clearly worried about something.

I think that's a speculation too far. If they were worried that their continued rolling and unrolling of the Shroud was making it disappear, a frame would not have made the slightest bit of difference.

The de Charny family conspicuously failed to convince anyone that it was authentic.

It would hardly have been necessary to appeal to the pope for a declaration of forgery if hundreds of people had not been convinced that it was authentic.

We must get more medievalists working in the weave painting techniques for linen and iconography

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[Olowkow]

The gesso is not "missing". The abundance of calcium carbonate in and on hte linen is what is left of it.

IANAA (not an artist) so I must be picturing this stuff incorrectly. I imagine gesso to be a bit like plaster of Paris or spackling compound only thinner. It dries stiff from what I have read. It's not really meant to be used on a fabric to be folded.

I would picture an old linen covered with gesso that has been carefully rolled or folded to end up with some areas of stiffened cloth to remain with the gesso layer pretty much intact but cracked, rather than losing it equally in all areas. It just seems that one would have to really work at removing the gesso for it to remain only as a vaguely detectable remnant. But, as Charles Freeman suggests, this might be what actually happened.

I'm comparing the look I expect to the oilcloth of the 50s, vinyl bonded to flannel. I remember tablecloths that started losing their vinyl covering and exposing the fabric in spots, but not equally in all areas.

ETA: Just to confirm that this thread has had at least a modicum of educational value, I will post the e-mail response I got from the professor I mentioned in my recent post #1380. I sent him a link to Charles Freeman's paper, the Wiki link to the SoT, and the link to the ShroudStory site.

Thanks for these links, which I have now looked at. The Wikipedia link summarizes just about everything that has been published on the subject, without drawing a conclusion. The RCD analyses in that report, as well as weave patterns, are the most persuasive evidence that this cloth comes from the 11th or 12th century. I like the art history analysis by Freeman because it looks at stuff not considered by most people and it makes sense. I also see the RCD and art history analyses as an intersection of the humanities and sciences, which has always appealed to me. The religious blog doesn't add much to the debate. A simple question, however, would be, if the shroud is some kind of image generated by a body, why is it that that there is no mention of this image in the gospels or other literature descended from the time by people who were close to Jesus? Surely they would have noted it.​

 

[Slowvehicle]

IANAA (not an artist) so I must be picturing this stuff incorrectly. I imagine gesso to be a bit like plaster of Paris or spackling compound only thinner. It dries stiff from what I have read. It's not really meant to be used on a fabric to be folded.

I would picture an old linen covered with gesso that has been carefully rolled or folded to end up with some areas of stiffened cloth to remain with the gesso layer pretty much intact but cracked, rather than losing it equally in all areas. It just seems that one would have to really work at removing the gesso for it to remain only as a vaguely detectable remnant. But, as Charles Freeman suggests, this might be what actually happened.

I'm comparing the look I expect to the oilcloth of the 50s, vinyl bonded to flannel. I remember tablecloths that started losing their vinyl covering and exposing the fabric in spots, but not equally in all areas.

ETA: Just to confirm that this thread has had at least a modicum of educational value, I will post the e-mail response I got from the professor I mentioned in my recent post #1380. I sent him a link to Charles Freeman's paper, the Wiki link to the SoT, and the link to the ShroudStory site.

Given that the vehicle, or size, for fine gesso in the 13^th would have been very dilute rabbit skin glue (not a resin), and the pigment would have been marble dust (with perhaps some powdered gypsum); if the CIQ were, in fact, gessoed, the medium would be much more likely, upon handling (including rolling and folding) to have powdered off instead of flaking or spalling. In Bright Earth, Phillip Ball points out that this is why there are so few surviving examples of large-scale painted medieval cloths.

...but I'm just a pigment grinder...

 

[Charles Freeman]

Hugh. Better examples- yes, if you have seen a fine linen table cloth and there is some evidence that some were about twice as fine in medieval times as the Shroud. One also has to remember the point made by the textile expert Vial in his analysis of the weave when he examined it in 1988 when they were choosing the r-c sample ( it is in the CIETA Bulletin for 1989), that the yarn used to weave the Shroud varied widely in size. He gives examples. No fine weaver would have allowed this and it also explains why there is talk of irregularities in the weave. They were the inevitable result of using disparate yarns. Vial also noted places where mistakes had been made in the herringbone pattern.
The medieval advice given when weaving a linen that was to be painted on was that the weave should be quite dense so that it could be sealed effectively by the gesso. This may in itself account for the high density of the weave.
Lots of Hugh's points above are arguable and need to be taken on.
Since writing earlier, I have been looking at the fourteenth century paintings in the Bologna
Gallery, especially the Crucifixions and burials of Christ. It is remarkable how blood running down the arms of Christ appears in the fourteenth century - for me it us part of the jigsaw of evidence that the artist of the Shroud was working within the iconography of the fourteenth century ( although the best example is the all- over flagellation, known nowhere before 1300 and unrecorded in reality, inspired apparently by taking Isaiah 1:6 as a premonition of what would happen to Christ). It is interesting that the Shroudies never explore this.
The head of a Christ from the same period in Bologna also has globules of blood very similar to those on the Shroud - compare too the globules with Holkham Bible Crucifixion scenes of 1330. These were surely painted and not the result of a liquid meeting unsealed linen.
Yes, perhaps we ought to move over to Art in the hope of attracting expert opinion. If we can just accept that the Shroud exists as a physical object, that no one, despite hundreds of hours of research, has dated it before the medieval period, then we can focus completely in the medieval context in which it might have originated.

 

[hugh farey]

Lots of Hugh's points above are arguable and need to be taken on.

Oh, I quite agree. Let's keep looking! To me the blood looks dribbled on as if with a pipette, and the scourge marks like potato prints (or whatever the grown-up equivalent is!).

 

[MRC_Hans]

Oh, I quite agree. Let's keep looking! To me the blood looks dribbled on as if with a pipette, and the scourge marks like potato prints (or whatever the grown-up equivalent is!).

Well, not potato. Potatoes were not known in Europe at the time.

Hans

 

[wardenclyffe]

Charles Freeman,

I think the central question about whether the shroud was originally designed (or used) to deceive is this:

Why is there a 1390 letter that declares it a forgery and that the forger confessed?

I think this mystery needs to be solved before the rest of your theory can fall into place.

Ward

 

[Andy_Ross]

Well, not potato. Potatoes were not known in Europe at the time.

Hans

Turnip print?

 

[Garrette]

Well, not potato. Potatoes were not known in Europe at the time.

Hans

More evidence for authenticity, then. Potato prints without potatoes? Only God can do that.

 

[Charles Freeman]

Wardenclyffe. I think you need to be careful with the terminology here. I am away and have not the original text with me but I thunk that it was that the de Charney's were fraudulently making the claim that they had the real thing that was the charge. It was precisely in 1390 that the anti-pope Clement VII allowed continued exposition of the Shroud, even with an indulgence attached, so long as it was publicly announced before each exposition that it was not the real thing. This implies that the shroud was one of those many thousands of spiritual objects that gained status usually because a miracle was associated with them. This was common for icons, of course. The best fit hypothesis for the Shroud seems to be it was in this category. Clement would never have made his declaration if he had believed that the Shroud had been deliberately created to deceive .

 

[Craig4]

- Also, why can't we determine, at least roughly, the extent of cotton in the samples?
- Also, I read somewhere that the cotton was not medieval or European. Is that correct?

Cotton was common in Rome and became largely inaccessible in Europe between the end of the Classical period 450ish and the First Crusade late 1090s. After the First Crusade it was readily available though probably not cheap as it was a Silk Road trade good imported by mostly Venitian and Genovese traders.

 

[Giordano]

Wardenclyffe. I think you need to be careful with the terminology here. I am away and have not the original text with me but I thunk that it was that the de Charney's were fraudulently making the claim that they had the real thing that was the charge. It was precisely in 1390 that the anti-pope Clement VII allowed continued exposition of the Shroud, even with an indulgence attached, so long as it was publicly announced before each exposition that it was not the real thing. This implies that the shroud was one of those many thousands of spiritual objects that gained status usually because a miracle was associated with them. This was common for icons, of course. The best fit hypothesis for the Shroud seems to be it was in this category. Clement would never have made his declaration if he had believed that the Shroud had been deliberately created to deceive .

I will only take issue with your statement that Pope Clement "would never have made his declaration if he had believed that the Shroud had been deliberately created to deceive." There is lots of evidence that churches in general, and Popes in particular, were only to willing to have the populace believe in something, even if it originated under very shady circumstances, if that belief would aid in religious fever and/or the political position of the Church. Lying for xxx has been, and continues to be, considered legitimate by many religious people, with the idea that a small deception now will save someone's soul later. Add to this the fact that the Shroud was a very popular and politically important document for some sects within the Church. I actually credit Clement a great deal in his compromise in that the Shroud could be displayed, but the viewers must be warned.

 

[Aepervius]

As you know, Charles, I am quite a fan of the Quem Quaeritis origin of the Shroud, but I must query the statement that anything similar can be found elsewhere. There may have been 'inverted' colour, double full-length, front-and-back images all over the place, but there is absolutely no evidence for that. While some aspects of the Shroud image can be found elsewhere (such as the Holkham bible), in general it is indeed unique.

But it is unique only by the figure represented iow : the christ, *not* by the technical mastery of the painting used, or the effect of aging on the veil , which is I think the point of Charles.
if you look at the zittau veil for example, it is on the painting mastery to my untrained eye far more advanced than the turin shroud. the aging effect can also be found on otehr painted shroud.

In other word, there is *nothing* technically which was beyond the epoch, in fact all of it seem to pass checks for the epoch. Which is to be expected for something paint at that time.

In otehr word : tehre is nothing on the mastery and technic which disprove a medieval origin.

 

[hugh farey]

I agree that the various skills involved were not beyond the epoch, or it would be difficult to believe in a medieval origin; it's just that there is actually nothing similar. I myself think that the discolouration of the linen that seems to be the principle component of the image today may be the result of an acidic medium carrying some sort of pigment no longer present, such that the denser the original pigment, the darker the present discolouration. However I have no medieval evidence to demonstrate that such an effect ever occurred elsewhere, even in the Zittau Fastentuch. Similarly, there is nothing in medieval art to suggest that a two-bodied, head to head, image is impossible or even unlikely; its just that nothing similar seems to have survived. The Shroud is genuinely, in these respects, technically and stylistically unique, even if it wasn't so when it was created.

 

[wardenclyffe]

Wardenclyffe. I think you need to be careful with the terminology here. I am away and have not the original text with me but I thunk that it was that the de Charney's were fraudulently making the claim that they had the real thing that was the charge. It was precisely in 1390 that the anti-pope Clement VII allowed continued exposition of the Shroud, even with an indulgence attached, so long as it was publicly announced before each exposition that it was not the real thing. This implies that the shroud was one of those many thousands of spiritual objects that gained status usually because a miracle was associated with them. This was common for icons, of course. The best fit hypothesis for the Shroud seems to be it was in this category. Clement would never have made his declaration if he had believed that the Shroud had been deliberately created to deceive .

You are far more familiar with the evidence than I am. I brought up the challenge because your main opponents* (shroudies) cannot. They cannot use evidence that the shroud was declared a fraud in the 1300s. That would hurt their case in every other area.

So, are you suggesting that the shroud was not made to deceive, but was being used to deceive within a few decades after its creation?

Ward

* This implies that I am one of your opponents (but not a main one). I'm not. I just find the subject fascinating and your hypothesis seems reasonable, but I'm having trouble fitting the 1390 letter (which I have not even read) into the equation.

 

[Dinwar]

So, are you suggesting that the shroud was not made to deceive, but was being used to deceive within a few decades after its creation?

Seems reasonable. Someone got greedy; it's pretty much a constant in human nature.

(Not that I'm arguing against you, just a random thought you spurred. )