LINK TO SHROUD

HISTORIAN David Adkins made another astonishing claim recently – that the Turin Shroud was made in Burton.

As we reported in the Burton Mail in March, the sensational evidence surfaced after Mr Adkins revealed that the shroud, one of Christianity’s most important and controversial artefacts, was originally a tablecloth from this town.

Mr Adkins claims the image is not that of Christ but Arthurian legend the Fisher King. The outline of the last keeper of the Holy Grail appeared on a simple tablecloth used by monks at Burton Abbey to wrap the alabaster column on which it had been carved.

To gain money, they sold the garment as a miraculous image of Jesus.

The Abbey had known links to crack Middle Ages fighting force The Knights Templar, at the forefront of the bloody Crusades.

A picture painted in 1412, just 59 years after the first written record of the shroud – has added weight to David’s controversial theory.

The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, illustrated by the Limbourg brothers, features a tablecloth on which a banquet is spread, and is the cloth that would later be hailed as Christ’s shroud, says David.

The picture features Sir Thomas Blount, the keeper of the monarch’s linen, folding a napkin. This links Blount directly to the linen tablecloth and as such it links the tablecloth or shroud to Burton.

Mr Adkins said: “The Blounts were a leading Burton family at the time and they go back a long way in the annals of Burton Abbey. This can only strengthen a direct link between the Turin Shroud and the Blount family of Burton-ontrent.”