This is the twelfth instalment of My critique (2) of Sarzeaud, N., 2025, "Further evidence suggests Jesus was not wrapped in 'Shroud of Turin'," Scimex, 29 Aug 2025. I have split the former post into two parts because of its length: this part (2) and the previous part (1). My words are in [bold square brackets] to distinguish them from those of the article's.
Continuing from part (1): "Sarzeaud says Oresme would have assessed the Shroud, as it had found its way to Lirey – a village in France’s Champagne region" and my "Sarzeaud does not mention that `the Shroud ... found its way to Lirey' from Constantinople in 1204 ..."
[Death in 1342 of Geoffroy I's first wife Jeanne de Toucy (c.1301–c.1342)[10Feb18; 11May24]. It is my theory, which fits the facts below, that due to the French de Vergys' fears of an English invasion of France's far eastern Franche-Comté region, the capital of which was Besançon; or Besançon being absorbed into the bordering German Holy Roman Empire; either of which would lose the Shroud from France; upon the death of Geoffroy I's wife Jeanne de Toucy in 1342, the de Vergys hatched a plan with Philip VI and Geoffroy I, that a de Vergy would take the Shroud from St. Stephen's Cathedral, Besançon and deliver it to Philip VI in Paris, who would give it to Geoffroy I on the condition he would marry Jeanne de Vergy when she reached the medieval marriageable age of 14[10Feb18]. With the approval of Jeanne's parents: Guillaume III de Vergy (1290-1360) and Agnes de Durnes (1280-1356) and Jeanne herself, who presumably was the only unmarried de Vergy female of marriageable age who was willing to forego a normal marriage to a man near her own age for the sake of the Shroud.
What made this feasible was the medieval law of dowry. Dowry was "the property settled on the bride herself, by the groom at the time of marriage, and which remains under her ownership and control"[DWW]. Dowries went "toward establishing a marital household, and therefore might include furnishings such as linens and furniture"[DWW]. A wife's dowry provided an element of financial security in widowhood[DWW]. So the Shroud was, and remained, the property of Jeanne de Vergy, not Geoffroy I de Charny!
Early in 1343, Geoffroy I appealed to King Philip VI (r. 1328-50) for rent revenues of 140 livres annually, so he could build and operate a chapel at Lirey with five chaplains (or canons), for a village of only ~50 houses[10Feb18; 11May24]! In June 1343, Philip granted Geoffroy's appeal for 140 livres of rent revenue for the construction and ongoing financing of the Lirey church and its clergy[10Feb18; 11May24]. A document dated 3 January 1349 in the Lirey church archives, confirmed a donation by Philip VI of land yielding 140 livres annually that will pay the salaries and expenses of the canons who will take charge of the Lirey church[10Feb18].
In March 1349 St. Etienne's (Stephen's) Cathedral, Besançon, was struck by lightning[10Feb18]. The resulting fire badly damaged the cathedral and destroyed its records[10Feb18]. It was discovered that the reliquary containing the Shroud was missing[10Feb18]. One of the de Vergys (presumably Jeanne[SD08, 413]) delivered the Shroud to King Philip VI in Paris[15Feb16; 25Sep19; 04Apr22]. I do not claim that the plan to take the Shroud from St Stephen's Cathedral Besançon to Philip VI in Paris (see above), depended on the cathedral being struck by lightning and catching fire! It would have involved the quiet substitution of the Shroud with the `Besançon Shroud' (see below) at an opportune time.
On 16 April 1349 Geoffroy I wrote to the French Avignon Pope Clement VI (r.1342-52), advising of his intention to build a church at Lirey, to be staffed by five canons and a Dean and requesting that the church be raised to the level of a collegiate[10Feb18], which would be responsible to the Pope, not the Archbishop of Troyes[08Nov22]. This is evidence that Philip VI had received the Shroud from Jeanne de Vergy and that she and Geoffroy had agreed to marry, and that the French Pope Clement VI knew it, since this number of clergy and its proposed collegiate status, is far in excess of what tiny Lirey warranted[10Feb18]. In a further petition of 26 April 1349 to Pope Clement, Geoffrey requested that the Lirey church have its own cemetery, "for the canons, chaplains and whosoever desires" but for his own remains, Geoffrey desired that, "his bones be divided and buried in diverse places"[CD88, 30]. The Pope granted Geoffroy's requests, except for the church's collegiate status[10Feb18], because in December Geoffroy had been captured by the English at Calais and taken a prisoner to London[10Feb18].
In July 1351 Geoffroy returned to France from his captivity in England after his huge ransom of 12,000 ecus had been paid by the new King John II (1350-64)[13Apr18]. In the ~18 months of his captivity, Geoffroy wrote, The Book of Chivalry[10Feb18]. Published in 1356, the book contains hints that Geoffroy was married: "Deeds undertaken for Love of a Lady", even secretly: "... the most secret love is the most lasting and the truest ..."[10Feb18].
In 1351, Geoffroy I de Charny (c. 1306-56) married Jeanne de Vergy (c.1337–1428)[13Apr18; FS25b; FS25c]. Geoffroy was born in c.1306[FS25a; GDW], and Jeanne was born in c.1337[FS25b; FS25c]. So when they maried Geoffroy was ~45 and Jeanne was ~14! Their first child, Geoffroy II de Charny (1352-98), was born in 1352[13Apr18; FS25c]. Geoffroy I was a councillor of King John II[CD88, 34; OM10, 48], the Captain-General of the French army, and one of the foremost figures in France[CD81, 29]. Whereas Jeanne was a ~14 year-old girl from Besançon, 410 km = 255 mi. from Paris, and a legal owner of the Shroud[SD08, 412-413]. That, and the ~31 year diference in their ages, proves beyond reasonable doubt that this was an arranged marriage, that the dying Philip VI had given the Shroud to Geoffroy I in 1349 on the condition that he marry Jeanne when she reached marriageable age[see above; 15Feb16; 25Sep19]. Thus placing the Shroud firmly under the control of France and removing the threat of the Shroud coming under the control of the Holy Roman Empire.
Construction of the Lirey church was completed on 20 June 1353 and John II retrospectively granted Geoffroy I permission to build a collegiate church in Lirey[13Apr18]!
On 30 January 1354 Geoffroy resubmitted his petition of five years previously (see above) to the new Avignon Pope Innocent VI (r. 1352-62), for approval that the now built Lirey church be raised to the status of a collegiate church[13Apr18]. Its clergy had increased to six canons, one of whom was the Dean, together with three assistant clerics[13Apr18], still for a tiny a village of only ~50 houses [13Apr18]! Geoffrey repeated his request that the Lirey church have its own cemetery, with a significant change: Geoffrey requested that himself and his successors to be buried in the Lirey church cemetery[CD88, 31]. This is evidence that sometime between 26 April 1349 and 30 January 1354 Geoffroy had obtained the Shroud for the Lirey church[CD88, 31-32; SD08, 413]. Which includes Geoffroy and Jeanne's wedding in 1351 (see above)!
In August 1354, Pope Innocent VI recognised the Lirey church's canons and its collegiate status and granted indulgences to pilgrims visiting the church[13Apr18]. Yet despite extant lists of the various relics held by the Lirey church in 1354, none mention the Shroud[13Apr18]! This is because the Shroud never was the property of the Lirey church but remained the private property of Jeanne de Vergy and Geoffroy I de Charny[13Apr18]. See 09Nov18 where Geoffroy II's daughter, Marguerite de Charny (c. 1393-1460), refused to return the Shroud to the Lirey canons because it was her property, not theirs! It wasn't until 1983, when ex-king Umberto II (1904-83) in his will bequeathed the Shroud to the Pope and his successors[08Dec22] that the Shroud became the property of the Roman Catholic Church.In 1375, the Archbishop of Besançon, Guillaume (William) de Vergy (r. 1371–91), claimed to have found the original Shroud lost in the Besançon cathedrals's 1349 fire (see above)[13Apr18]. He `verified' it was the original Shroud by a `miracle' of laying it on a `dead' man who immediately revived[13Apr18]! This painted copy of the Shroud with the frontal image only, the `Besançon Shroud'[see 25Sep19], was kept at Besançon until it was destroyed in 1794 during the French Revolution[13Apr18]. Guillaume was a favourite of John II's older son, King Charles V (r.1364-80)[13Apr18] and was in 1391 made Cardinal of Besançon by Avignon Pope Clement VII (r.1378-94)[13Apr18]. Which is significant (see future).
In 1525, a notice titled, "Pour scavoir la verite ("To know the truth") was posted in the recently rebuilt in stone Lirey church[25Sep19] by its canons[25Sep19]. It contains inaccuracies, being ~174 years after Geofroy I's 1351 marriage to Jeanne de Vergy (see above), but its core claim that King Philip VI, gave the Shroud to Geoffroy I de Charny "'as recompense for his valour," is consistent with the Besançon -> Philip VI -> Lirey theory (see above).
The above, including the Othon de la Roche - Jeanne de Vergy ancestor-descendant relationship; the Lirey church's disproportionately large clergy and collegiate status for such a tiny village; the marriage of the ~45 year-old Geoffroy I of Paris with the ~14 year-old Jeanne from Besançon; proves beyond reasonable doubt that the Constantinople -> Athens -> Burgundy -> Besançon -> Paris -> Lirey journey of the Shroud is true! And therefore, the Shroud was in Constantinople in 1204: ~56 years before its earliest 1260 radiocarbon date and ~151 years before its first appearance in undisputed history at Lirey in 1355!] (As such, the controversial relic was known as the Shroud of Lirey in medieval times.) [Is this true? Or is Sarzeaud, the anti-Christian, trying to denigrate the Shroud? The twelfth century historian William of Tyre (c.1130–86), called the Shroud the "shroud of Christ"[26Feb20]. In his 1389 Memorandum, d'Arcis calls it the "Shroud of Christ"[13Apr18; 03Jul18]. And even Oresme called the Shroud "the Shroud of the Lord Jesus Christ" in his 1370 footnote (see part (1).]
Oresme, Dr Sarzeaud explains, referenced the Shroud in a document written between 1355 and 1382, most likely after 1370. [Again, it was only a footnote.] He hypothesizes that Oresme learned about the Lirey fraud [There was no "Lirey fraud." As we saw in part (1), neither Jeanne de Vergy, nor the Lirey canons, became wealthy after the 1355 exposition, and the wooden Lirey church fell into disrepair. And that if they had committed fraud in exhibiting the Shroud they would have been prosecuted for simony, but they were not.] when he was a scholar and a counsellor to the king in the 1350s. [If this was Charles V, he was not king in the 1350s - he became king in 1364, when his father John II died in captivity in England[13Apr18]. Was Oresme a counsellor to king Charles V? Wikipedia says Oresme "translated Aristotelian texts for King Charles V of France"[NOW]. That's not the role of a counsellor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that "Oresme served Charles" who "was crowned King Charles V on his father’s death" in ... 1364 ..."[SEP]. That's the role of a paid worker. So in boosting Oresme, Sarzeaud, like his mentor Nicolotti, "operates a systematic exaltation of the scholars who [he thinks] believe the Shroud to be false"[part (1)]!]It was displayed in Lirey until around 1355 when the Bishop of Troyes ordered its removal. [That would have been Bishop Henri de Poitiers (r. 1354–70). But as we saw in Part (1), he didn't have a problem with the Shroud. Also, Lirey was a collegiate church, responsible to the Pope, not the Archbishop of Troyes (see above). So Henri could not have ordered the removal of the Shroud. Proof of that is that when Bishop Pierre d'Arcis wanted the Shroud removed from Lirey church in c.1389, he had to try to get King Charles VI (r. 1380-1422) to do it[03Jul18]. But it failed because the Dean and canons stalled for time and appealed to the king who rescinded his order[03Jul18].] This followed extensive investigations adding evidence that it was not authentic [There was no investigation by Henri de Poitiers into the Shroud[11Jul16; 22Dec16; 03Jul18; 19Oct22]. If there had been, it would have been documented in Troyes Cathedral's archives (which are intact) and d'Arcis (who had been a lawyer[13Apr16; 11Jul16]) would have cited the name of the forger (who could have still been alive in d'Arcis' day) and the penalty, etc., but he didn't[11Jul16; 22Dec16; 03Jul18; 19Oct22].]
and people had been paid to ‘fake miracles’. [To philosophical naturalists, who believe that nature is all that there is - there is no supernatural, if there were real miracles of healing at the Shroud's 1355 exposition, they would interpret them as "fake miracles." And again, if what d'Arcis claimed was true:
"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 be the shroud of our Lord"[16Dec24; 10Oct25]then Jeanne de Vergy and/or the Lirey canons would have been fabulously wealthy from all that "money ... cunningly ... wrung from" "the multitude" but they were not[07Jul23; 10Oct25]! And the evidence is overwhelming that the Shroud is "the shroud of our Lord" and therefore philosophical naturalism is false! And as we saw[16Dec24; 10Oct25], and will see why in future below, in this d'Arcis was lying!]It was then hidden away for more than three decades [Sarzeaud is evidently basing this on d'Arcis' claim in his 1389 memorandum that the Lirey church's "Dean and his accomplices" had "hid away" the Shroud "so that" bishop de Poitiers "could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years":
"Accordingly, after taking mature counsel with wise theologians and men of the law, seeing that he [Henri de Poitiers] 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 [bishop] could not find it, and they kept it hidden afterwards for thirty-four years or thereabouts down to the present year"[11Jul16; 08Nov22]But again d'Arcis is lying (see 10Oct25) to support his false claim (above) that "money ... [was] cunningly ... wrung from" "the multitude." Because d'Arcis must have known that the Shroud wasn’t hidden, but that after its 1356 exposition, the widowed Jean de Vergy married Aymon (Amadeus) IV of Geneva (c.1324-69) and took the Shroud and her two young children by Geoffroy I to live with Aymon in Anthon, High Savoy[16Feb15; 25Oct15; 13Apr18; 19Oct22; 01Dec24]. It is extremely implausible that the Shroud could be hidden for ~34 years by the "Dean and his accomplices." Medieval France had an advanced law enforcement system and if the Shroud had been taken by the "Dean and his accomplices" why did not de Poitiers ask the police to find them and ask them where they had hidden the Shroud? The Dean of Lirey church, Robert de Caillac, died in 1358[WI98, 279], so he could have been found by de Poitiers or the police before he died and asked where he had hidden the Shroud.]
until it was granted permission from Pope Clement VII to be displayed once more [Which refutes d'Arcis' and Sarzeaud’s claim that that the Shroud was a painted forgery! Obviously Pope Clement would not have approved another exposition in Lirey of the same painted forgery!]
– but under the strict instruction that worshippers were to be told that it was as a ‘figure or representation of the Shroud’ and it should be exposed as so. [Sarzeaud dishonestly fails to inform his readers that Pope Clement VII also enjoined "perpetual silence" on Bishop d'Arcis in this matter[16Feb15; 20Jan16; 11Jul16; 20Jun18; 03Jul18; 19Oct22; 08Nov22]; 11Jan23; 07Jul23!]
And that it was a compromise. What I wrote in my obituary of Shroud sceptic David Sox (lightly edited) applies here to Sarzeaud:
Failure to consider alternatives Sox claimed that `The de Charnys appear to have been unconvinced of the authenticity of their Shroud, and quite willing to accept it as a 'likeness' or 'representation'"[15Aug17]. But Sox failed to consider that Pope Clement VII (r.1378-94) who ordered that Bishop d'Arcis remain "perpetually silent" about the 1389 second Lirey exposition in exchange for Geoffroy II de Charny (c.1352–1398) and his mother Jeanne de Vergy (c.1337–1428) only claiming that the Shroud was "a representation"; as Robert of Geneva (1342-94), was a nephew of Jeanne's second husband Aymon (Amadeus) IV de Geneva (1324-69). And after Jeanne married Aymon in c.1359 she took her ~7 year-old son Geoffroy II, her ~3 year-old daughter Charlotte, and the Shroud, to live with Aymon in Anthon, High Savoy, where they were neighbours of Robert in Annecy, High Savoy (see 16Feb15). There they would have given the future Pope a private viewing of the Shroud and explained to him that it was looted in the 1204 sack of Constantinople by Jeanne's ancestor, Othon de la Roche (c.1170-1234) [see 25Oct15). The problem for Pope Clement VII was that the Byzantine Empire (330–1453) still existed in 1389 and what's more, the Byzantine Emperor John V Palaiologos (1332–1391), was a son of Anna of Savoy (1306-65), a daughter of Count Amadeus V of Savoy (r. 1249-1323), who in turn had established Chambéry as his seat. So if Geoffroy II and Jeanne continued to claim that the Shroud was Jesus' burial Shroud, John V would have known it was the one looted from Constantinople and demanded it be returned, creating a diplomatic crisis for the Pope! It is significant that it was only in 1453 when the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist with the Fall of Constantinople that Geoffroy II's daughter, Marguerite de Charny (c. 1390–1460), transferred the Shroud to Duke Louis I of Savoy (r. 1440-65)[09Nov18].This explains why Pope Clement unexpectedly sided with Geoffroy II against Bishop d'Arcis, allowing the Shroud's to be exhibited a second time at Lirey in 1389, on the condition that Geoffroy II did not claim that the Shroud was Jesus' burial sheet, and enjoined "perpetual silence" on d'Arcis in this matter[16Feb15; 20Jun18; 09Nov18].
Moreover, d'Arcis knew that the Shroud displayed by Jeanne de Vergy was looted from Constantinople in 1204 by her Fourth Crusader ancestor Othon de la Roche[19Oct22]. That is because d'Arcis' Bishop of Troyes predecessor Garnier de Traînel (r. 1192-1205) was in Constantinople with the Fourth Crusade to obtain relics for the then new Troyes cathedral
"In 1188 a fire destroyed much of the town, and badly damaged the cathedral. Reconstruction began in 1199 or 1200, started by Bishop Garnier de Traînel. Once the construction was underway, the Bishop departed on the Fourth Crusade in 1204, and brought back to Troyes a collection of precious relics for the cathedral treasury"[TCW]de Traînel had been promised the Shroud for Troyes Cathedral's relic collection[19Oct22; 08Nov22], but the leader of the Fourth Crusade, Boniface of Montferrat (c. 1150 - 1207), gave it to Jeanne's ancestor Othon de la Roche, who was commander of the Blachernae Chapel area of Constantinople where the Shroud was[19Oct22; 08Nov22].
That d'Arcis was aware of this from Troyes Cathedral archives is evident by his strenuous efforts to obtain the Shroud rather than have it destroyed[19Oct22]. d'Arcis even admitted in his memorandum that he was accused of "acting through jealousy and cupidity and to obtain possession of the cloth for myself"[19Oct22; 08Nov22; 16Dec24]!]
It was formally announced as a fake in a memorandum for Pope Clement VII in 1389. [That was the d'Arcis memorandum of 1389. But
[Right (enlarge)[11Jan23]: Folio 137, the second of the two drafts, the first being folio 138, of the so-called d'Arcis Memorandum, kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (National Library of France)[03Jul18].]
it is the d'Arcis memor-andum which is a fake! There actually is no original d'Arcis memorandum. A true memorandum would be a signed, dated, finished document on parchment[BB91, 236-237]. But the d'Arcis memorandum is actually two unsigned, undated paper rough drafts[RTB]. It may not even have been written by d'Arcis but "a clerk of the Bishop's palace prepared a draft of a letter for the Bishop"[BB91, 237]. Evidence for this is that, "The document is written in barbarous Latin"[WE54, 65; WI98, 121], yet d'Arcis had been a lawyer (see above). There is no signed, dated, parchment, d'Arcis memorandum in either the Troyes or Vatican archives[RTB]. However, d'Arcis did receive a reply from Pope Clement, which does not mention a memorandum[RTB], so evidently d'Arcis verbally conveyed the memorandum's contents to Clement's papal legate, Cardinal Pierre de Thury (r. 1385-1410)[RTB]. Canon Ulysse Chevalier (1841-1923) fraudulently created the d'Arcis memorandum on parchment and dated it[RTB].]
To be continued in the thirteenth instalment of this post.
Notes:
1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]
Bibliography
BA91. Berard, A., ed., 1991, "History, Science, Theology and the Shroud," Symposium Proceedings, St. Louis Missouri, June 22-23, 1991, The Man in the Shroud Committee of Amarillo, Texas: Amarillo TX.
BB91. Bonnet-Eymard, B., "Study of original documents of the archives of the Diocese of Troyes in France with particular reference to the Memorandum of Pierre d'Arcis," in BA91, 233-260.
CD81.Crispino, D.C., 1981, "Why Did Geoffroy de Charny Change His Mind?," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 1, December, 28-34.
CD88. Crispino, D.C., 1988, "To Know the Truth: A Sixteenth Century Document with Excursus," Shroud Spectrum International, No. 28/29, September/December, 25-40
DWW. "Dowry," Wikipedia, 15 September 2025.
FS25a. "Brief Life History of Geoffroi [I de Charny]," FamilySearch, 2025.
FS25b. "Brief Life History of Jeanne de [Vergy]," FamilySearch, 2025.
FS25c. "Brief Life History of Geoffoi II [de Charny]," FamilySearch, 2025.
GDW. "Geoffroi de Charny," Wikipedia, 10 October 2025.
NOW. "Nicole Oresme," Wikipedia, 26 October 2025.
OM10. Oxley, M., 2010, "The Challenge of the Shroud: History, Science and the Shroud of Turin," AuthorHouse: Milton Keynes UK.
RTB. Reference(s) to be provided.
SD08. Scavone, D., 2008, "Besançon and Other Hypotheses for the Missing Years: The Shrod from 1200 To 1400," in Fanti, G., ed., 2009, "The Shroud of Turin: Perspectives on a Multifaceted Enigma," Proceedings of the 2008 Columbus Ohio International Conference, August 14-17, 2008, Progetto Libreria: Padua, Italy, 408-433 .
SEP. "Nicole Oresme," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2021.
TCW. "Troyes Cathedral: Gothic cathedral," Wikipedia, 31 August 2025.
WE54. Wuenschel, E.A. 1954, "Self-Portrait of Christ: The Holy Shroud of Turin," Holy Shroud Guild: Esopus NY, Third printing, 1961.
WI98. Wilson, I., 1998, "The Blood and the Shroud: New Evidence that the World's Most Sacred Relic is Real," Simon & Schuster: New York NY.
Posted 12 November 2025. Updated 25 November 2025.
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