Hungarian Pray Manuscript
The Hungarian Pray Manuscript, or Codex Pray, is a collection of medieval documents that is kept in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. This document was named after György Pray who discovered it in the year 1770 and it is known to have been compiled at the Boldva monastery in northern Hungary between 1192 and 1195.
The manuscript includes various illustrations, including one with two scenes depicting the tomb of Jesus (see across). The upper scene shows the body of Jesus lying in the tomb. The disciple Nicodemus is pictured annointing the body and there are two additional figures shown in this scene. These are believed to represent Joseph of Arimathea and the apostle John.
The lower scene depicts Mary Magdalene, Salome and Mary the mother of James entering the tomb. To the left is an angel who tells them that Jesus had risen.
Almost all paintings of similar scenes produced in this period show Jesus with a loin cloth covering the pelvis. However, this illustration depicts Jesus as completely naked which was highly unusual for its time. This naked representation of the body is of course consistent with the image seen on the Shroud.
As you can see in the detail of the painted hands shown opposite, the right hand crosses the left, covering the groin. The fingers of the hands are long and slender but no thumbs are visible.
These features are an exact match for what is seen in the image found on the Shroud, pictured on the right.
The lower scene of the Pray Manuscript illustration also shows what appears to be a depiction of the Shroud folded in two. A zig-zag pattern fills the upper fold of the cloth and you can clearly see as well as a series of circles arranged in the shape of an upside-down letter ‘L’.
Both of these motifs are very unusual features. It’s hard to understand why the artist who illustrated the Pray Manuscript would have decorated one part of the Shroud with a herringbone pattern when the other part was adorned with crosses, which is perhaps a more appropriate choice of decoration. It’s even harder to explain why the artist would have added four circles arranged into an ‘L’ shape, an irregular pattern which certainly doesn’t enhance the artistic appearance of the painting.
it seems highly likely that the inspiration for the zig-zag pattern and the arrangement of circles came from having viewed the Shroud. The zig-zag pattern captures the essential character of the Shroud weave in a simple but effective way, whilst the ‘L’ shaped arrangement of four circles matches four burn-holes so closely that it’s difficult to perceive of any other credible explanation for their presence.
