Early Historical References Historical references dating back to the 4th Century give clues to the Shrouds existence prior to the Middle Ages and centuries earlier than C-14 Dating indicates.

Pope Sylvester--325 AD: Declared at the Baths of Trajan Ecumenical Council that the mass could not be celebrated without having a fair linen cloth on the altar representing the Shroud.

Theodore of Mopsuestia 389 AD When they [the deacons] bring up [the linen] they place it on the altar for the completed representation of the passion so that we may think of Him on the altar as if He were placed in the sepulchre after having received the passion. This is why the [two] deacons who spread the linens on the altar represent the figure of the linen clothes at the burial. (Front and back image?)

Mozarabic Rite of Holy Week From the sixth century Clarification of John 20:3-10 Peter ran with John to the tomb and saw the recent imprints of the dead and risen man on the linens.

Mandylion Descriptions 6th through 9th Centuries 6th century: The divinely wrought image which the hands of men did not form 8th century: The Lord impressed an image of himself 9th century: The city of Edessa in which there was preserved a blood stained image of the Lord, not made by hands

More Shroud-like Descriptions from 10th Century 10th Century: A moist secretion without pigment or painters art 10th Century: He was barely able to make out an outline

Constantinople August 16, 944 The splendor has been impressed uniquely by the drops of agony sweat sprinkled from the face…These are truly the beauties that produced the coloring of Christs imprint, which has been embellished further by the drops of blood sprinkled from his own side…blood and water there, sweat and image here.

The Shroud? References to blood and water from the side and sweat and image certainly sound like a description of the Shroud we know today.

From England The story is passed down from the archives of ancient authority that the Lord prostrated himself with his entire body on the whitest linen, and so by divine power there was impressed on the linen a most beautiful imprint of not only the face, but the entire body of the Lord. --English Raconteur, Gervase of Tilbury

Crusader Robert deClari in Constantinople Described the church of the Blanchernae... Where there was the Shroud in which our Lord had been wrapped, which every Friday, raised itself upright, so one could see the figure of our Lord on it. Represented by The Man of Sorrows Icon

The Fourth Crusade Letter to Pope Innocent III In April last year, a crusading army, having falsely set out to liberate the Holy Land, instead laid waste the City of Constantine. During the sack, troops of Venice and France looted even the Holy Sanctuaries. The Venetions partitioned the the treasures of gold, silver and ivory, while the French did the same with the relics of the saints and, most sacred of all, the linen in which our Lord Jesus Christ was wrapped after his death and before the resurrection.

What happened to the linen called Most Sacred of All? Did it just disappear? Or was it kept by the Mysterious Knights Templar who 200 years later were charged during the French Inquisition with the heresy of worshipping a mysterious image?