the loins. It is pretended that this relic was saved by a Christian at the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, and it was preserved for many centuries by the faithful.
In 640 it was brought back to Palestine, from whence it was transferred to Europe by the Crusaders. It was taken by a French knight named Geoffroi de Charny, who presented it to the collegiate church of a place called Liré, which belonged to him, and which is situated about three leagues from the town of Troyes, in Champagne; the donor declaring, on that occasion, that this holy sheet was taken by him from the infidels, and that it had delivered him in a miraculous manner from a prison dungeon into which he had been cast by the English.
The canons of that church, seeing at once the great profits to be derived from such a relic, lost no time in exhibiting it, and their church was soon crowded with devotees. The bishop of Troyes, Henri de Poitiers, finding however no proofs of the authenticity of this relic, prohibited it to be shown as an object of worship, and it remained unheeded for twenty-four years.
The sons of Geoffroi de Charny, about the year 1388, obtained permission from the Papal legate to restore this relic of their father’s to the church of Liré, and the canon exposed it in front of the pulpit, surrounding it with lighted tapers, but the bishop of Troyes, Peter d’Arcy, prohibited this exhibition under pain of excommunication. They afterwards obtained from the king, Charles VI., an authorization to worship the holy sudarium in the church of Liré. The bishop upon this repaired to court, and represented to the king that the worship of the pretended sheet of Jesus Christ was nothing less than downright idolatry, and he argued so effectually that Charles revoked the permission by an edict of the 21st August 1389.
Geoffroi de Charny’s sons then appealed to Pope Clemens VII., who was residing at Avignon, and he granted permission for the holy sudarium to be exhibited. The bishop of Troyes sent a memorial to the Pope, explaining the importance attached to this so-called holy relic. Clemens did not, however, prohibit the sudarium to be shown, but he forbade its being exhibited as the real sudary of Jesus Christ. The canons of Liré, therefore, put aside their sudary, but it reappeared in other places, and after being shown about in various churches and convents it remained at Chambery in 1432, where nobody dared to impugn its reality. From that time its fame increased, and Francis I., king of France, went a pilgrimage on foot, the whole way from Lyons to Chambery, in order to worship this linen cloth. In 1578 St Charles Borromeo having announced his intention of going on foot to Chambery to adore the holy sudary, the Duke of Savoy, wishing to spare this high-born saint the trouble of so long a pilgrimage, commanded the relic to be brought to Turin, where it has since remained, and where the miracles performed by it and the solemn worship paid to it, may be considered as a proof that its authenticity is no longer doubted.
There are about six holy sudaries preserved in other churches, besides the pieces shown elsewhere.
136 Calvin, speaking of the silver pieces for which Judas betrayed our Lord, does not say where they are shown. Two of them are preserved in the Church of the Annunciation at Florence, one in the Church of St John of the Lateran, and another in that of the Holy Cross at Rome. There is one piece at the Church of the Visitandine Convent at Aix in Provence besides many other places where they are displayed.—Collin de Plancy, Dictionaire des Reliques.
137 The whole skeleton of the animal is preserved at Vicenza, enclosed in an artificial figure of an ass.