Overview

• Historian Nicolas Sarzeaud reports a previously unknown passage by Nicole Oresme that labels the Lirey shroud a clear fake, published August 28 in the peer‑reviewed Journal of Medieval History.
• Oresme’s statement, written between 1355 and 1382 and likely after 1370, accuses clergymen of deceiving worshippers to elicit offerings, identifying the Champagne (Lirey) church by example.
• The passage is presented as the earliest known written denunciation of the relic, predating Bishop Pierre d’Arcis’s 1389 memorandum that called the cloth a manufactured image.
• The study situates the text within documented church actions in Troyes, including the mid‑1350s removal of the display and later papal limits requiring it be shown only as a representation.
• Coverage notes recent scientific challenges to authenticity, including a 2025 Archaeometry 3D analysis suggesting contact with a sculpture and radiocarbon dating to the 13th–14th century, even as some researchers and believers continue to argue for authenticity.