c. 1130

Events:

• The English chronicler, the monk Orderic Vitalis, notes in his Ecclesiastical History: Abgar reigned as toparch of Edessa. It was to him that the Lord Jesus sent […] most precious linen, with which he wiped the sweat from his face, and on which the Saviour’s features shone, miraculously reproduced. This linen allowed all who could see it to admire the likeness and proportions of Our Lord’s body. A Latin codex from the same period quotes a sentence from Christ’s letter to Abgar: […] I send you a cloth; know that on it not only my face but my whole body has been miraculously imprinted.

Comment:

Copies and paintings of the Mandylion appearing widely for the first time in this century suggest that, after conservation treatments, the cloth was reassembled so that only the face was visible.