Never heard this part before, would have been nice to include at least a photo of the actual letter:
“The case, Holy Father, stands thus. Some time since in this diocese of Troyes the Dean of a certain collegiate church, to wit, that of Lirey, falsely and deceitfully, being consumed with the passion of avarice, and not from any motive of devotion but only of gain, procured for his church a certain cloth cunningly painted, upon which by a clever sleight of hand was depicted the twofold image of one man, that is to say, the back and front, he falsely declaring and pretending that this was the actual shroud in which our Saviour Jesus Christ was enfolded in the tomb, and upon which the whole likeness of the Saviour had remained thus impressed together with the wounds which He bore.”
“This story was put about not only in the kingdom of France, but, so to speak, throughout the world, so that from all parts people came together to view it. And further to attract the multitude so that money might cunningly be wrung from them, pretended miracles were worked, certain men being hired to represent themselves as healed at the moment of the exhibition of the shroud, which all believed to the shroud of our Lord. The Lord Henry of Poitiers, of pious memory, then Bishop of Troyes, becoming aware of this, and urged by many prudent persons to take action, as indeed was his duty in the exercise of his ordinary jurisdiction, set himself earnestly to work to fathom the truth of this matter.”
“For many theologians and other wise persons declared that this could not be the real shroud of our Lord having the Saviour’s likeness thus imprinted upon it, since the holy Gospel made no mention of any such imprint, while, if it had been true, it was quite unlikely that the holy Evangelists would have omitted to record it, or that the fact should have remained hidden until the present time. Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.”
“Accordingly, after taking mature counsel with wise theologians and men of the law, seeing that he neither ought nor could allow the matter to pass, he began to institute formal proceedings against the said Dean and his accomplices in order to root out this false persuasion. They, seeing their wickedness discovered, hid away the said cloth so that the Ordinary could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year.”
First of all, one needs to know who Geoffrey de Charney was to understand why he would NOT be party to a fraud of this nature. Sir Geoffrey was the Standard Bearer of the King of France, the most favored knight in all of the Kingdom. As the Standard Bearer, he fought by the King’s side in all battles, bearing the Flag of the King, was expected to DIE for the King in the King’s defense. Geoffrey WROTE the Code of Chivalry for the Honor of all Knights in France, which became the Code Chivalric for all Christendom. . . Outlining how to live a Godly Life and Honorable Life as a Knight. The Code of the Knights of the Round Table grew from Geoffrey’s Code.
The Chapel Church at Lirey was built to house the Shroud. It was not acquired as Pierre and Henri assert to draw pilgrims there to extract their penitent sous as donations. The writings of its patron, Geoffrey de Charney make this clear. It is a historical fact that Geoffrey de Charney funded the Chapel at Lirey to house the Shroud and funded its operation from his own coffers, and would NOT accept donations from pilgrims who came there to view the Shroud. He, in fact, almost bankrupted his family doing it. By the time he died, his widow, Margaret De Charney was faced with that bankruptcy and had to sell the Shroud to survive. It was purchased by the Savoy family of Italy, later to become the ruling family of Italy, and the Shroud was moved to Turin, where it resides today. Margaret received a lifetime rente in exchange for the Shroud so she could continue living in the style she was accustomed to living.
Perhaps you can see why Bishop Pierre De Arcys of Trois (or Troyes) claim just does not hold water when he says that Geoffrey was displaying the Shroud to defraud penitents of their donations? The real reason might more likely be that he feared they would go to Lirey for veneration of the Shroud rather than venerating the relics at the Cathedral at Trois and leaving their donations there.
Eventually, after diligent inquiry and examination, he discovered the fraud and how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed.”
. . . They, seeing their wickedness discovered, hid away the said cloth so that the Ordinary could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year.”
The “Ordinary” (Bishop Henri acting as an investigator) claimed to have found the “artist” in a letter he never sent, but did not name him. But today we have no additional works of this unsung genius who has succeeded in baffling every scientist who has looked at what has been called “the most researched and studied object in the last 100 years of modern science,” all without being able to come to a conclusion about how it was created.
Bishop Pierre wanted to stop the Widow Charney from displaying the Shroud and funding her family with it, but Bishop Henri had intended to have it destroyed had he found it, with being his intention to “root it out and stop it being shown.” This was right at the height of the Inquisition. While not as Rabid as the Spanish Inquisition, the French Inquisitors were also powerful. Henri and his ilk were just as committed to rooting out iniquity. Naturally, to protect it from destruction, Geoffrey brought it back to his manorhouse/castle to prevent what he knew was genuine considering where his Great Grandfather had acquired it in Constantinople—looted it during the Fourth Crusade.