Could a bishop from the 14th century have been the first myth-buster? Before carbon dating and forensic blood typing, Nicole Oresme, a Norman scholar, royal advisor, and later Bishop of Lisieux, was proclaiming the Shroud of Turin a “patent” forgery. His words, now recorded in a recently discovered manuscript, are the earliest known written dismissal of the relic’s authenticity, beating out the better-known 1389 denunciation by Bishop Pierre d’Arcis.
The Shroud, a 14-foot linen cloth bearing a dimly printed image of a man with wounds common to crucifixion, has been held sacred by some as being Jesus’ burial cloth. The Shroud emerged in 1354 in the hands of knight Geoffroi de Charny and was soon drawing pilgrims and skeptics. Already in the late 14th century, it was in dispute d’Arcis accused it of being “cunningly painted” and even knew the painter who had admitted to its making.
Oresme’s book on unexplained events, written between 1355 and 1382, but most likely in 1370, shows an astonishingly rational approach for the time. He evaluated propositions on the basis of the credibility and number of witnesses and whether the event was natural and in line with reason. “I do not need to believe anyone who claims: ‘Someone performed such miracle for me,’ because many clergy men 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,” he stated. Historian Nicolas Sarzeaud, author of the discovery in the Journal of Medieval History, states that Oresme’s choice of the Lirey Shroud as an example was deliberate its renown made it a perfect subject to study clerical forgery.
Fast-forward to the 20th century, and science seemed to confirm Oresme’s skepticism. In 1988, three independent labs Arizona, Oxford, and Zurich tested the Shroud samples using radiocarbon methods. Their reported findings in Nature, with a confidence level of 95 percent, stated that the linen dated from between CE 1260 and 1390, exactly its earliest known appearance. As the article concluded, “These results therefore provide conclusive evidence that the linen of the Shroud of Turin is medieval.”
These results have been challenged with attempted refutations through contamination by fire in 1532 in Chambéry, medieval restoration, or carbon monoxide poisoning. Controlled experiments, though, have shown such conditions to have little impact on dating accuracy. Blood spatter analysis has raised additional doubts: controlled experiments simulating crucifixion wounds found the Shroud’s stains incompatible with a crucified body because the patterns would require limbs in unnatural position.
The history of the Shroud conforms to a larger medieval trend. The Middle Ages hosted a flourishing commercial trade in relics, from the bones of saints to pieces of the True Cross, and along with this, a constant volume of forgeries. Church synods such as the Lyons synods of 1245 and 1275 even decreed that papal authentication be performed prior to the veneration of “recently discovered” relics. Some cults, including the Shroud one at Lirey, were eventually shut down by clerical authorities themselves. As Sarzeaud clearly explains, “The Shroud is the most documented case of a forged relic in the Middle Ages, and one of the few examples of a cult denounced and stopped by the Church and clerics.”
What is so remarkable about Oresme’s position is not so much his conclusion as his approach. Here is a man of faith demanding that belief be supported by evidence, not hearsay or authority. His willingness to adjudicate the credibility of witnesses and rule out uncorroborated testimony indicates that critical thinking was not dead in medieval times a direct refutation of the image of an age of uncritical credulity.
University of Turin Professor Andrea Nicolotti underscores the significance: Oresme “not personally involved in the dispute and therefore had no interest in supporting his own position.” His testimony, Nicolotti explains, “perfectly confirmed” the fraud scenario already well-known from other accounts. The fact that such suspicions had penetrated to the royal court in Paris suggests that the Shroud’s dubious origins were street gossip among the educated elites.
Centuries later, the relic still generates faith, controversy, and research. Modern sindonology has questioned everything from the weft of the cloth to the chemistry of its image, but no conclusion has upended medieval and scientific determinations. For historically curious minds, Oresme’s 14th-century voice is a reminder: skepticism of extraordinary claims is not novel it’s an old tradition as ancient as the myths themselves.
