The king's evil.

  • Crawfurd, Raymond Henry Payne, Sir, 1865-1938.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The king's evil. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    fol. 20 [at Whitsuntide]. tribus egrotis benedictis de manu regis per elemosi- narium regis Hid. [for three sick persons, blessed by the King's touch, through the almoner, 3d.] In the Wardrobe Accounts' of Edward I there occur also frequent entries: ' pro denariis datis infirmis bene- dictis per Regem'. [For pence given to sick persons blessed by the King] These Wardrobe Accounts show also that Edward I was burdened by ancient custom with an enormous distribution of alms, quite apart from those touched for the Evil. The recipients of such alms received upwards of half a million payments in a single year. Between November 20 and the succeeding April 10, Edward also touched no less than 275 persons. But this number pales into insignificance before the 533 touched in the single month of April, when he had been but five years on the throne. Such a prevalence as this would suggest that the practice had at least been customary in the reign of his father, Henry III. It may be, of course, that Edward I was the first to pay a dole, but it is impossible to decide thus conclusively on the negative evidence of the very scanty accounts of his predecessors that have survived. The Confessor, it will be recalled, had made payment in kind. The records serve further to show that the ceremonial was still of the simplest kind ; a touch accompanied by a blessing, along with the sign of the Cross, and a dole of one penny; and that the seasons of healing were generally the festivals of the Church. Meantime, in France the ceremonial had acquired a greater dignity under the hand of the saintly Louis IX (1226-1270 a. d.). Whereas Louis VI had made use 1 Liber Quotidianus Contrarotulatoris Garderobae, 28 Edward I.