The Oviedo Cloth
by Mark Guscin

Chapter One - From the Tomb to the North of Spain

In the cathedral town of Oviedo in the north of Spain there is a cloth measuring approximately 84 x 53 cm on which there are bloodstains, fold marks, and other things invisible to the naked eye, such as pollen, but definitely no image. What makes this cloth special is that the bloodstains are claimed to be those of Jesus. Without proof such a claim can not be made lightly. There is proof, not absolutely decisive (no such claim could be) either for or against this hypothesis. The purpose of this book is to investigate these claims and relate the conclusions to the much better known cloth that is kept in Turin.

Such a cloth is known to have existed from the gospel of John:

"Simon Peter, following him, also came up, went into the tomb, saw the linen cloths lying on the ground, and also the cloth that had been over his head; this was not with the linen cloth but rolled up in a place by itself."
(John 20. 6-7)

There are several points worth mentioning here. The gospel of John, or the fourth gospel, was written after the other three, and is different from them in many aspects. The author writes as an eyewitness, and excepting the last chapter, probably was the apostle John. The main argument against his being the author is a supposedly late date of composition, but this argument does not stand up to the facts. There is a fragment of papyrus in the John Rylands Library in Manchester containing parts of John chapter 18. From the style of handwriting, this fragment, found in Egypt, has been dated to approximately AD 125, and for the work to have been current in Egypt at this time it must have been written some years before, so a date of composition during the apostle’s lifetime is perfectly reasonable.

John describes in detail the cloths he saw in the tomb. First he mentions the linen cloths, or as other translations of the gospel call them, the linen wrappings. The Greek word is, ‘ta othonia’, which means ‘pieces of fine linen’. It is a different word from that used in the other gospels, but the meaning is the same, and the curious thing here is that the word is plural. The other gospels only refer to the one cloth in which Jesus was wrapped, whereas John mentions at least two. It is not clear whether or not these linen cloths would have included the sheet that was in direct contact with the corpse. Rodney Hoare, in his book, The Turin Shroud is Genuine, says that they did not include the Shroud, rather they were ‘materials used for the full burial rites’. This point is not particularly important and has no bearing either way on the Shroud’s authenticity. It simply tells us that there were various pieces of material involved.

The interesting point is the other piece of material that John saw - ‘the cloth that had been over his head’. The word he uses is, ‘to soudarion’, which is an adaptation of the Latin ‘sudarium’. This word was used by various classical authors, such as Catullus, Suetonius and Petronius, and means a ‘face cloth’ or ‘towel’, used for drying or wiping the face. John saw this cloth rolled or folded up, (the Greek word can be translated either way), separate from the other cloths. On seeing these cloths, John tells us that he believed. Many bible scholars have put forward theories about exactly what it was that John believed at this moment, but most of these theories originate from non-Christian stand points. Of course, to be a bible scholar you do not have to be a Christian, but the point is that the gospels were written from the Christian point of view, and as such, all that John means is that he saw the cloths and empty tomb and believed what Jesus had alluded to earlier, that he would rise on the third day. Early Christian writers, such as Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem and John Chrysostom attribute John’s believing on seeing the cloths to his realisation that if the cloths were still there, the body could not have been stolen, as no robbers would have taken the time and trouble to unwrap the corpse and leave the cloths folded or wrapped up, each in its own place.

There are other translations and ideas of what the sudarium was. H Kersten and E R Gruber, in their book The Jesus Conspiracy, translate the words referring to this cloth as ‘the sudarium which was meant to be placed over his head’. This, however, is not really a translation at all, as it is impossible to extract this from the Greek text as it stands. It is rather their own personal interpretation, twisting the sense of the original words. They were obliged to do this by their conclusion that Jesus did not actually die on the cross and thus there was no burial. They claim that the sudarium was a kind of healing cloth, which again is an impossible interpretation of the Greek word. Others think that this other cloth was a jaw band, tied under the chin and round the top of the head of corpse to keep its mouth closed. It is not impossible that such a thing could have been used, although a sudarium did not serve this purpose and it is not the cloth that John mentions.

There are very few references to the sudarium after this until its appearance in Oviedo a thousand years later. These references are often confusing because as Latin had no word of its own for the Greek ‘sindon’ of the synoptic gospels (i.e. the Shroud), the word ‘sudarium’ was often used to mean this larger cloth that covered the whole body. In the Vulgate, the official Latin translation of the Bible, the sudarium that John speaks of is clearly that face cloth, whereas for the linen cloths or wrappings the neuter plural ‘linteamina’ is used.

This confusion of vocabulary is evident in a letter of Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza, in the seventh century. The exact dates of his life, career and death are not known, but he probably lived from c. 590 to 646, being bishop approximately the last twenty years of his life. He was a disciple of Isidore of Seville, and it was Braulio who encouraged Isidore to finish his Etymologies and who gave them their titles and divisions. More than forty of Braulio’s letters have survived, providing useful information about the Visigoth kingdom in Spain. In one of these letters, dated 631, he speaks of the existence of the linteamina and the sudarium, but says that their whereabouts is unknown. This detail fits in with other historical testimonies, as will be seen below. Braulio uses the same words as in the Latin text of John, linteamina and sudarium, both in the ablative case, but seems to confuse their use. He says, ‘. . . sicut de linteaminibus et sudario quo corpus Domini est involutum’ (the linen cloths and sudarium in which the body of the Lord was wrapped). The relative pronoun, ‘quo’, is singular, and thus refers to the sudarium. It has been suggested that ‘quo’ is singular because it has been attracted by its proximity to the singular noun, ‘sudario’, and really the plural, ‘quibus’, is to be understood, which would then refer to the linen cloths and the sudarium. This is not impossible, but it does seem more probable that Braulio simply confused the meaning of the terms. Perhaps he understood John’s words, ‘the cloth that had been over his head’, as referring to the larger cloth that had also covered the body.

This confusion, however, is not always apparent. In an anonymous text of about 570, we read ‘sudarium quod fuit in fronte Domini’, (the sudarium that was on the face (or forehead) of the Lord), and in another text of about a hundred years later, ‘sudarium (linteamen minus) quod in sepulchro super caput eius fuit’ (the sudarium (smaller cloth) that was over his head in the tomb). This last quotation shows a clear understanding of the purpose of the sudarium, although as will be seen later, the sudarium could not have been over Jesus’ head while he was in the tomb. The text shows that the existence of the smaller face cloth was known and understood.

The difference between the two words is also evident in many medieval texts, showing that some writers had a very clear idea of the use of each cloth. Two examples will suffice here. The first is to be found in the sequence of Wipo, written around the year 1050. The lines that interest us are 11 to 16, which read as follows, in Latin:

Dic nobis Maria
´quid vidisti in via?´
´Sepulcrum Christi viventis
et gloriam vidi resurgentis:
Angelicos testes
Sudarium et vestes.´
(Tell us Mary, what did you see on the road? I saw the tomb of the living Christ, and his glory as he rose, angelical witness, the sudarium and the linen cloths)

‘Vestes’ is not the normal Latin word for the linen cloths (this would be ‘linteamina’), but it is used here to rhyme with ‘testes’. This does not necessarily mean that Wipo had seen or even knew about either cloth, just that he understood the difference.

The second example is from a long rhythmical poem written in the Carolingian renaissance. The first eight lines read as follows:

Tristis venit ad Pilatum
Pastoris discipulus,
Quem Joseph dudum parentes
Dixere cognomine.
Corpus petiit magistri
constanter et abiit,
Tollens munda crucifixum
involvens in sindone
(The disciple, named Joseph by his parents long before, came in grief to Pilate. He asked for the body of the master and left, took the crucified body and wrapped it in clean shroud.)

This is rhythmical poetry, where the first line has eight syllables, the second seven, the third eight and so on. The poet chose to use the Greek word ‘sindone’ with the preposition ‘in’ instead of the more obvious ‘sudario’ - probably because he was aware that this was the correct word to use, understanding that a sudarium was a much smaller cloth.

For the history of how the cloth reached Oviedo, we depend on the chronicles of Pelayo, bishop of Oviedo and local historian. He lived in the twelfth century, and his historical works are The Book of the Testaments of Oviedo and the Chronicon Regum Legionensium, which describe events during the period from 986 to 1109. He tells us that the sudarium was taken from Jerusalem when the Christians fled the Persian invasion in the seventh century, was brought to Toledo in Spain through the north of Africa, and when the Muslims invaded Spain in the eighth century it was taken to the relatively safe north of the country. Pelayo has sometimes been called ‘El Fabulador’ (the Storyteller) because some details in his work are not strictly true. In this case, however, it all fits in perfectly with known history from other sources, except in one detail.

Chosroes II was king of Persia from 590 to 628. On the death of his father, he had to fight the usurper Bahram VI. He did this with the support of the Byzantine emperor Mauritius, in return for certain lands. He later returned the favour, when Mauritius was dethroned by Phocas in 602, declaring war on the Byzantine Empire. He attacked and occupied Damascus, Antioch and Jerusalem in 614, and Alexandria in 616. Phocas was succeeded by Heraclius, who restored the strength of Byzantium, and Chosroes was defeated at Nineveh in 628. He was imprisoned by one of his sons and assassinated.

This account would mean that the sudarium had been in Jerusalem, or at least Palestine, from the death of Jesus until this time, and was taken away shortly before Chosroes attacked the area. From Jerusalem, the sudarium was taken first to Alexandria by the presbyter, Philip. However, Chosroes and the Persians were going in the same direction, and they conquered Alexandria two years later. By this time, the sudarium was travelling again, escaping destruction at the Persians’ hands.

After crossing the north of Africa, the sudarium came to Spain, entering the Iberian Peninsula at Cartagena, in the company of people who were fleeing from the Persians. The bishop of Écija, Saint Fulgentius, welcomed the refugees and the relics, and surrendered the oaken chest or ark, in which the sudarium was kept, to Saint Leandro, who was bishop at Seville. He took it with him to Seville, where it spent some years.

Saint Isidore then became bishop of Seville. Isidore was the teacher of San Ildefonso, who was appointed bishop of Toledo in 657 AD. When he left Seville to take up his post there, he took the ark with him. It stayed in Toledo until the year 718. The Muslims had invaded Spain at the beginning of the eighth century and met with very little resistance in almost all the peninsula. This invasion was the reason for the ark’s being taken further north. According to Pelayo, from Toledo the chest was taken directly to Oviedo. This detail in his account cannot be strictly true, because Oviedo was not founded until 761 AD, and after destruction by the Arabs, again in 795 AD. The relics were first taken to a cave which is now called Monsacro, ten kilometres from Oviedo. The sudarium was in the cave until King Alfonso II (791-842) built a special place for it, the ‘Cámara Santa’ in the cathedral. This was in 840, towards the end of his reign.

A slightly different year for the departure from Toledo is given in the Chronicum Mundi written by Lucas de Tuy, who was Bishop of Tuy (a Spanish town that is on the border with the north of Portugal) from 1239-1240. Lucas says that the relics left Toledo the same year that the Arabs invaded Spain (i.e. 711), and that they had been there for ninety-five years (i.e. since 616).

616 seems too early - this was the same year that Alexandria fell to Chosroes and the Persians, only two years after the fall of Jerusalem. The relics had yet to travel all across the north of Africa, enter Spain and spend some time in Seville before reaching Toledo. However, they do seem to have been in Spain in 631 when Braulio wrote about the two burial cloths.

Another relevant text is the History and Description of Spain by Abunbenque Mohamat Rasis. In a description of the Arab invasion, he says that many Christians left the cities and fled to the mountains of Asturias (Oviedo is in Asturias), taking relics with them and hiding them underground.

Abunbenque does not specifically mention the sudarium, but his description fits in exactly with what we know from other sources.

There are other versions of the sudarium’s stay in Spain before being taken to Asturias in the north. It is strange that Braulio, writing when the chest was supposedly in Toledo, does not know exactly where it is. Some have doubted that it was in Seville, but it does seem clear that Leandro was connected with the sudarium, and possibly even knew about the Shroud. In the Mozarabic Liturgy for Easter Saturday, a liturgy intimately associated with and possibly even partly rewritten by Leandro, we read the following, ‘Ad monument-um Petrus cum Iohanne cucurrit, recientaque in linteamini-bus defuncti et resurgentis vestigia cernit’. (Peter ran to the tomb with John and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen one on the cloths).

Leandro had lived in Constantinople from 579 to 582, and visited the city again in 595 (he died in 600 or 601 AD). This was only fifty-four years after the Shroud/Mandylion’s rediscovery in Edessa, so he could very well have heard about it and even seen it. Would it be too much to read into ‘defunctio et resurgentis’ the idea of the two cloths, the sudarium with the imprint of death and the Shroud with the imprint of the resurrection? It has even been suggested that the chest with the sudarium was in Constantinople and Leandro brought it back to Spain with him. Leandro could certainly not have seen the sudarium in Spain if Pelayo’s account is to be believed, because he died 13 or 14 years before Chosroes invaded Jerusalem. Whichever version is true, the chest was in Spain at the beginning of the seventh century.

The key date in the history of the sudarium is 14 March 1075. On this date the ark or chest where the sudarium was kept was officially opened in the presence of King Alfonso VI, his sister Doña Urraca, Rodrígo Díaz de Vivar (el Cid Campeador) and a number of bishops. This official act was recorded in a document which is now kept in the Capitular Archives of the cathedral in Oviedo, Series B.2.9.

This is not the original document from the year 1075, but rather it is a copy, which was made in the thirteenth century. The copy is so exact that even the signatures are imitated - the vertical signature of Urraca is clearly legible.

The document states that even in the year 1075, the chest had been in the church for a long time (‘Thesaurum . . . quod magna antiquitate in eadem ecclesia manebat occultum’).

Alfonso VI had been dethroned by his brother, Sancho II, in 1072 and fled to the Muslim Kingdom of Toledo, from where the sudarium had been taken to Oviedo. When Sancho died, Alfonso returned and was proclaimed king over Castilla, León, Galicia and Portugal. This was his status in 1075 when the ark was opened. Later, he captured Toledo from the Muslims, and died in 1109. His sister was Urraca Fernandez, born in 1033, seven years before Alfonso. She died in 1101, having exercised great influence over her brother.

El Cid is one of the best-known characters in Spanish history. His real name was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a knight in the service of Sancho and later in that of Alfonso. He was exiled by Alfonso, then reconciled with him and later exiled again. He is best remembered for conquering the Muslim kingdom of Valencia before his death in 1099. It is clear that when the ark was opened in Oviedo, he was on good terms with Alfonso. The sudarium is thus connected with one of the most popular heroes of the Middle Ages, whose deeds were celebrated in the anonymous epic poem ‘Cantar del Mio Cid’.

The sudarium has been in Oviedo ever since, kept in a wooden ark. Alfonso VI had this ark covered with silver plating, on which the twelve apostles, the four evangelists and Christ are portrayed. There are inscriptions in Arabic and Latin, both of Christian origin. After the reconquest of the kingdom of Toledo, Christian inscriptions were often written in Arabic. The Latin inscription invites all Catholics to venerate this relic that contains the holy blood. The silver plating dates from the year 1113, and gives a list of the contents of the ark. One of these items is clearly registered as ‘el Santo Sudario de N.S.J.C.’ These letters stand for ‘Nuestro Señor Jesucristo’, and the inscription means, ‘The Sacred Sudarium of Our Lord Jesus Christ’.

Oviedo was not on the medieval pilgrims’ route to Santiago de Compostela, but many walkers made the relatively short detour to visit the cathedral and its sudarium. There was a pilgrims’ song which proclaimed the superiority of Oviedo over Santiago:

Quien va a Santiago y no al Salvador
Honra al siervo y deja al Señor.
(he who goes to Santiago but not to Oviedo, honours the servant and not the Lord).

El Salvador (the Saviour) is the name of the cathedral at Oviedo.