It was believed that a prayer and a "royal touch" by the king (or queen) could cure scrofulous conditions. This belief became popular around the time of Edward the Confessor (1042-66), but only one healing is documented for this king. Rather, the touching ceremony was codified by Henry II (1154-1189). It became a Divine Service.
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| Gold Angel of James I Obverse shows St. Michael slaying the evil Dragon. |
The practice of hanging the holed piece about the neck of the sufferer while the king touched the sores of the afflicted might stem from an earlier tradition wherein naked children were instructed to pass through a hole in a tree or large stone three times. A re-birthing perhaps?
Numismatists tend to call Angels used during the touching ceremony "healing pieces" thereby reserving the name "touch pieces" to the medalets specifically designed for the ceremony about the time of the Restoration of Charles II. Still, it appears that the Angels were produced with the ceremony in mind.
The notion of coins being used to spark magic was widespread in post-medieval England. For example, silver pennies were often folded in half to make a vow to a saint in times of sickness. The idea was that the saint could produce a cure once a pilgrimage was made to a church whereat a saintly relic was present. The folded coin was offered with a prayer in hopes that a miraculous cure would be forthcoming. In this context, the Angel healing pieces fit well within the beliefs of the common folk.
A nice overview of these coins has been provided by Noel Woolf in a monograph entitled: The Sovereign Remedy: Touch-Pieces and the King's Evil (published by the British Association of Numismatic Societies). For the necromancer, magical coins are perhaps the most potent pieces you can collect. Just imagine: James I slipped this very Angel about the neck of a sufferer. From the looks of it, the coin was worn for some time and then lost in a field.
What more do you want from a coin?
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