Why We May Think the Shroud is Medieval

One would have thought that any interest in the Shroud of Turin would have quickly abated following the carbon 14 testing in 1988. According to the test results, it was not, as so many believed, the authentic burial Shroud of Jesus. It was medieval. Nature, the prestigious international weekly journal of science, published an article about the test coauthored by twenty-one scientists from the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, the Institut für Mittelenergiephysik in Zurich, Columbia University, and the British Museum. The conclusion in Nature was clear:

Nature: The results of radiocarbon measurements at Arizona, Oxford and Zurich yield a calibrated calendar age range with at least 95% confidence for the linen of the Shroud of Turin of AD 1260 - 1390 (rounded down/up to nearest 10 yr). These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is mediaeval.

A headline in the New York Times read: “Test Shows Shroud of Turin to be Fraud.” Other newspapers around the world reported similar conclusions. One of the radiocarbon dating scientists from Oxford stated on public television: “We have shown the Shroud to be a fake. Anyone who disagrees with us ought to belong to the Flat Earth Society.”

However, for many people, the carbon 14 test results only made the Shroud all the more puzzling and all the more fascinating. There was a preponderance of other, recently discovered scientific and historical evidence that argued that the Shroud was really much older. Some of the evidence suggested that it had been in Constantinople at one time, in the ancient Christian community of Edessa before that, and in the environs of Jerusalem. But it isn’t just the carbon 14 results that point toward a medieval origin. The Shroud does have a definite footprint in medieval Europe. To some people this is sufficient evidence in itself. The Shroud’s first known appearance in Western European history was in 1356, a time of unbridled superstition in demons, witches, magic, and miracle-working relics. It was a time of frequent famine and the Black Death plague. It was also a time of extreme economic and political turbulence and of war. The same year that the Shroud was first displayed publicly in the small French village of Lirey, nearby, at the battle of Poitiers, England’s Black Prince defeated the French and captured King John II of France. Adding to the political turmoil, the pope was in Avignon, not Rome — some even believed that the plague was God’s retribution on the whole world because the pope was not in the eternal city. In this climate of superstition, naiveté and disorder a lucrative market in false relics flourished. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 acknowledged the problem with false relics but church authorities did little to curb the market for them—and it did indeed flourish. Our knowledge of this history rightly conditions us to be suspicious of any relic that might have first appeared in Europe at this time. Moreover, in 1389, a memorandum written by Pierre d’Arcis, the Bishop of Troyes, France, openly challenged the authenticity of the Shroud. In the memorandum, addressed to the Avignon Pope Clement VII, Pierre claimed that an artist had admitted that he had ‘cunningly painted’ the Shroud.

In 1978, a decade before the carbon 14 tests, a large team of scientists examined the Shroud in Turin. As part of that work, particle samples were collected from the Shroud’s surface by pressing sticky tape onto the surface. Walter McCrone, a well-recognized expert in microanalysis and painting authentication, was provided with some of the samples. He found minute traces of hematite (iron oxide) used for red ochre commonly referred to as Jeweler’s Rouge and a concentration of mercuric sulphide, a constituent of vermilion paint. Both red ochre and vermillion were common paint pigments used during the Middle Ages. For most people, this seems to be enough evidence to conclude that the Shroud is medieval.