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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    of the sign of the Cross, his successors had merely touched the sore place and uttered some appropriate words. Louis IX, however, revived the signature of the Cross. Cum enim alii Reges predecessores sui tangendo solummodo locum morbi, verba ad hoc appropriata et consueta proferrent, quae quidem verba sancta sunt atque Catholica, nee facere consuevissent aliquod si- gnum crucis: ipse super consuetudinem aliorum hoc addidit, quod dicendo verba super locum morbi, sanctae crucis signaculum imprimebat, ut sequens curatio virtuti crucis attribueretur potius quam Regiae Maiestati.1 [For as the kings before him had merely touched the sore place, uttering some appropriate and time-honoured words of sacred and Catholic kind, and had not been accustomed to make the sign of the Cross: he made this addition to their practice, that he imprinted the sign of the Cross, that the resultant cure might be ascribed to the power of the Cross and not to his Majesty as King.] Mezeray2 says that St. Louis also initiated the custom of the King preparing himself for the ceremony by fasting, by prayer, and by the Holy Sacrament. Menin3 confirms and amplifies Mezeray's statement, adding that it was St. Louis who introduced the custom of the King going three days after his consecration at Rheims to the shrine of St. Marcoulf at Corbigny, there to undergo a nine days' devotion, as a preliminary to touching for the Evil. The Chronicle of St. Denys4 fills in the picture with some details of the demeanour of Louis in the presence of the sick. Louis knelt down ' MS.' Vita et Sancta Conversatio Piae Memoriae Ludovici Noni Per Fratrem Gavridum de Belloloco, Ordinis Praedicatorum, Eius Confessorem.' In Duchesne, Hist. Francontm, ed. 1649, vol. v. p. 460. J Histoire de France, 1643, vol. i. p. 634. 3 Traite historique du Sucre et Couronnement des Rois et des Reines de France, 1723. 4 Tillemont, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. 1849, vo'- vn- P- 3°°- C 2