Royal Château Amboise and The Turin Shroud
Yolande of France, Duchess of Savoy
As so often happily happens, something completely unexpected turned up while researching for my next book The Valois Children of Château Amboise (working title).
It turns out that Yolande of Valois, who was born in to her impoverished father’s Court in Tours, was responsible for The Cult of The Turin Shroud.
The grandson of her private secretary, who published the history of the Shroud, said the Cult started with Yolande, who, as Regent of Savoy, vigorously promoted its veneration.
Because of the significance she gave it, thousands of pilgrims travelled miles to see it.
What was Yolande’s connection with Amboise?
The Royal Château.
Royal Château Amboise by Mark Playle.
Because her father (Charles VII) wanted to control Savoy's strategically important Alpine's mountain passes and trade routes, when she was two Yolande was promised to Amadeus the future duke of Savoy.
Some sources say Yolande stayed with her mother until she was eighteen and left to get married in 1452. This is entirely plausible. Marie’s daughter Radegonde died unmarried at nineteen. Her daughter Madeleine was nineteen when she left home to get married.
It is to be hoped that this was the case with Yolande. Her poor mother lost her beloved daughter Radegonde and equally loved daughter-in-law, Margaret Stewart when they both died in 1445. The following year her beloved daughters Joanna and Catherine died.
Marie wore black for the rest of her life. No wonder she didn’t want Yolande or Madeleine to leave her.
Another argument in favour of Yolande NOT leaving her mother until she was eighteen is that sources say she as a bookish child. This could not have been noted if she was two. Also, when she left Amboise it is said she packed three chests of books. Surely a two year old would not have asked for them or her mother pack them? Not impossible but highly improbable.
The books were very probably from the Château's magnificent library which was built up over four hundred years by the previous owners from the House of Amboise?
However, others sources say when Yolande was two she was sent to Chambéry at the foot of the French Alps, with her future husband by her future in-laws, the duke and duchess of Savoy. If so they couldn’t have been ecstatic over the arrangement. Not only did they have nineteen children of their own to feed, they were stony broke.
If true, Yolande was in Chambéry when her brother Louis (XII) married the duke’s nine year old daughter Charlotte by proxy in 1451. Although it was the French custom for under age brides to be brought up by future in laws, Charlotte didn’t meet Marie until Louis succeeded his father Charles VII, so it could very well be that Yolande was not brought up by her future-in-laws.
Whether she grew up in Amboise or Savoy, Yolande married Amadeus seventeen, the duke’s son and heir when she was eighteen in 1452.
What was Yolande’s connection to the Shroud?
In 1452, the year she married Amadeus, his father bought The Shroud as an heirloom for The House of Savoy and put it in Chambéry’s Franciscan church.
When Amadeus, who was very devout, succeeded his father as the duke of Savoy in 1465 he commissioned a chapel to house the Shroud. Services took place during displays of the Shroud which was later incorporated into the Easter ceremonies celebrated at Court.
Yolande was named in honour of her mother’s mother, Yolande of Aragon who died in 1442 when Yolande was eight. Her grandmother would have been pleased at the way she turned out. She governed the Duchy of Anjou, her granddaughter successfully governed the duchy of Savoy.
A hundred years later, in 1559, another Valois daughter, Marguerite, arrived in Chambéry.
She was the youngest child of Francis I and Queen Claude. Marguerite of Valois also married the duke of Savoy, Emmanuel Philibert. The Bride, described as a spinster lady, was thirty-six. The Groom was twenty-three.
Post by Pamela (BA History of Art), Photography by Mark.
Out of the Shadows
The Ladies of Château Amboise
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