Between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, a curious tradition flourished at the intersection of politics, religion, and medicine. In the courts of England and France, monarchs were believed to possess a divine power to heal a specific affliction—scrofula, a disfiguring swelling of the lymph nodes, often associated with tuberculosis. The ceremony in which the sovereign laid hands upon the afflicted came to be known as “the Royal Touch.”
The King’s Evil
Scrofula, colloquially known as “the King’s Evil,” was a chronic condition characterized by abscesses and swellings in the neck, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. At a time when medical interventions were rudimentary and the cause of disease poorly understood, the condition was both physically and socially stigmatizing.
From at least the reign of Edward the Confessor in England and Philippe I in France, it was believed that kings—by virtue of their anointed status—could heal this affliction through touch. The ceremony, rich in ritual and symbolism, became a hallmark of royal authority and spiritual intercession.
The Ceremony
Accounts from the period describe elaborate public rituals in which the monarch would touch or make the sign of the cross over the afflicted, reciting a prayer or blessing. In England, it was common for the monarch to place a gold coin known as a “touch piece” into the hands of the patient. This token, stamped with royal emblems and often worn around the neck, was believed to carry residual healing power.
Ceremonies often took place on holy days—especially Easter or Michaelmas—and sometimes involved hundreds of patients. Louis XIV of France is said to have touched over 2,000 individuals in a single year. Elizabeth I, known for her strategic use of spectacle, conducted the ceremony with the full theatricality of a queen aware of its political significance.
Faith, Power, and Placebo
While there is no medical evidence to support the idea that scrofula could be cured by touch, the ritual undoubtedly brought comfort and hope to those involved. Modern scholars suggest that some patients may have experienced psychosomatic relief or spontaneous remission—aided by the powerful placebo effect of royal ritual.
More than a folk cure, the Royal Touch functioned as a public demonstration of divine right and political legitimacy. In healing the sick, the monarch affirmed both their sacred role and their bond with the people. It was, in a sense, a state-sanctioned miracle.
Decline and Disappearance
As Enlightenment thinking took hold in the eighteenth century, the practice fell out of favor. Scientific advances, especially in the understanding of contagion and microbial disease, rendered the idea of healing by royal contact increasingly untenable. Queen Anne was the last English monarch known to perform the ritual, in 1712. Her successor, George I, a Hanoverian unfamiliar with the tradition, declined to continue it.
In France, the practice lingered symbolically but was largely abandoned following the Revolution. By the early nineteenth century, the Royal Touch had become a historical curiosity—an emblem of an age when kings healed not by medicine, but by myth and mandate.
Curious Cures and Cultural Medicine
The story of the Royal Touch is not merely an anecdote of medical superstition. It offers a window into how healing, authority, and belief were intertwined in the political cultures of medieval and early modern Europe. It reflects a time when medicine was still a sacred art, and when illness was as much a matter of the soul and the social order as it was of the body.
Even in its obsolescence, the ritual remains a powerful reminder: that healing has always required more than knowledge—it has required meaning.