Touch-pieces
The royal touch; the king’s evil
- Known today as
- Gold coins, the angel and its successors, pierced and hung on a ribbon, given by the monarch to each person touched for scrofula, the “king’s evil.”
- Kind
- Sacramental
Touch-pieces: what was it used for?
Worn by the sufferer as the lasting pledge of the royal cure.
Touch-pieces: what does modern science say?
Touch-pieces are kept in museums, Johnson’s among them.
What Medicine Makes of It
- The King's EvilThe royal touch for scrofula, and a disease that heals itself.
Touch-pieces: what lore surrounds it?
Charles II is said to have touched some ninety thousand people. Queen Anne, the last English monarch to touch, touched the infant Samuel Johnson in 1712. In France the rite lasted until 1825.
In Their Own Words
The 1911 Britannica dates the touch-piece, a gold medal given to the sufferer as a kind of talisman, to the reign of Edward III, saying it was originally the angel coin stamped with St Michael and a ship.
“From his reign dates the use of the “touch-piece,” a gold medal given to the sufferer as a kind of talisman, which was originally the angel coin, stamped with designs of St Michael and of a three-masted ship.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition: King's Evil, “King's Evil”, vol. 15. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, as transcribed on Wikisource. The text, read in full
The same article says that from Henry VII's time the king merely touched the sufferer while the chaplain prayed, and then gave the touch-piece, pierced to hang on a ribbon round the patient's neck.
“…the king now merely touched his afflicted subject in the presence of the court chaplain who offered up certain prayers and afterwards presented the touch-piece, pierced so that it might be suspended by a ribbon round the patient’s neck.”
Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition: King's Evil, “King's Evil”, vol. 15: the ceremony. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, as transcribed on Wikisource. The text, read in full
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Sources
- Bloch, M. (1924). Les rois thaumaturges. Strasbourg; in English as The Royal Touch (1973). Verified against its record · doi:10.1086/358344
- Thomas, K. (1971). Religion and the Decline of Magic. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Verified against its record · doi:10.5040/9798881825980.ch-020
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Sources
- 2 cited: 2 verified against its record.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 28, 2026
- Chicago
“Touch-pieces.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified September 28, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/touch-pieces.
- MLA
“Touch-pieces.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 28 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/touch-pieces. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Touch-pieces. (2026, September 28). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/touch-pieces
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See Also
Drawing on the same sources: Bloch, Thomas
Nearby in the alphabet
Troche of agaric (Laricifomes officinalis (syn) · Tormentil · Truffle · Tongue stones (called tongue-stones, and by the Germans adders’ tongues) · Turkey tail (banded bracket of dead wood, common worldwide) · Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) · Turmeric (of the ginger family, whose root is deep yellow within) · Toadstone (Lepidotes, believed to come from a toad’s head)
Historical description, not medical advice.