Overview

• Published in the Journal of Medieval History, the analysis by Dr. Nicolas Sarzeaud highlights a passage located by historians Alain Boureau and Béatrice Delaurenti in a treatise by Nicole Oresme.
• Oresme’s text, dated between 1355 and 1382 and likely written after 1370, calls the Lirey relic a “clear” and “patent” fake produced by deceptive clergymen.
• The study retraces the cloth’s early history in Lirey, noting its removal around 1355 after investigations into staged miracles and its later display only as a “figure or representation” under Pope Clement VII.
• Recent technical research reinforces doubts about authenticity, including 1988 radiocarbon dating to the late 13th–14th centuries and a 2025 Archaeometry 3D analysis suggesting contact with a low‑relief sculpture rather than a human body.
• Shroud scholar Andrea Nicolotti says the Oresme document offers further historical evidence of medieval skepticism, even as belief in the relic’s authenticity persists among some devotees and researchers.