The Shroud of Turin

The Shroud of Turin is a remarkable object, a piece of linen with an image of a dead man depicted with dark red stains that might (maybe) be blood.  The man is shown as a photographic negative, light for the parts that would have been dark and vice versa.  Since the Middle Ages the linen has been thought by many to have been a burial shroud for Jesus after the Crucifixion.

 On the left is a modern photograph of the face on the Shroud, the way it appears if you just looked at it now.  On the right is a photographic negative, showing how the image comes alive when one photographs it using black and white film and then looks at the film (the negative) rather than printing it.  Understandably, this has raised major questions, because this couldn't have been seen before the invention of photography in the nineteenth century (it wasn't indeed noted until around 1900).

The Shroud first showed up in the fourteenth century in France.  It was in the possession of a man known as a notorious relic-monger.  Indeed, the bishop of Troyes declared it a fraud in 1390, saying it was designed to mislead the gullible, tricking them into visiting the church that had it and making offerings.  The bishop also announced that the artist who created it had confessed.  Medieval people believed in relics but also made clear that one should not believe everything presented as such.

Nonetheless, the Shroud has continued to attract attention and belief over the centuries.  In the sixteenth century it was acquired by the cathedral of Turin, where it has been ever since.  It has become a major tourist attraction there, even though one cannot actually see it, instead just seeing the chapel where it lies.  Actual viewings are very rare but also very popular. 

There are enough odd things about it that many still assert its authenticity, even though it's hard to explain where it could have been for 1300 years and why no one knew about it.  The strange "negative" effect has been discussed as the product of rays (?) emanating from the dead man, which of course would make more sense if the dead man were supernatural.  Some people however have claimed to have reproduced something that looks a whole lot like the Shroud using medieval techniques.

Some have said (though it's been disputed) that the plant pollen found on the fibers are more typical of the Middle East than medieval France, though even if this is the case, it might only show the Shroud to be a fourteenth-century Middle Eastern creation.  The carbon-dating of the fibers indicates a medieval date, though some have asserted that those who did the carbon-dating were misled by skin cells and the like left behind by people who touched and kissed the Shroud in the medieval period.

The modern Catholic church does not consider the Shroud a relic.  A relic, as I've noted before, is either a body part of a saint or something a saint touched and used (the latter being so-called second-class relics).  Rather, Pope Francis has called it an "icon."  Like paintings or other depictions of Christ (including Byzantine icons) it is considered to have value in orienting the thinking of the faithful toward divine subjects, even if the object is not divine itself.  The Holy Hanky of Cadouin, once thought to be stained with Jesus's sweat until its "decorative border" was revealed to be a statement of Muslim faith in Arabic, is similarly revered today as something to make the faithful ponder the life and death of Christ.

The Shroud thus indicates that people in the Middle Ages and the twenty-first century have reacted very similarly to relics:  some want to believe, some are dismissive, some say there's a deeper meaning regardless of historical accuracy.

© C. Dale Brittain 2019

For more on medieval religion, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.