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Description: | GDescription: Gold touch-piece of James IIObverse: IACO II D G M B FR[..] ET HI REX, three-masted shipReverse: SOLI DEO GLORIA, St. Michael and the dragonPierced at 12 o'clock (reverse)Dies: Woolf O1/R2[See Noel Woolf, The Sovereign Remedy: touch-pieces and the King's Evil (1990)]Date: 1685-8This is a touch-piece, a gold medal purpose-made for use in the ceremony of Touching for the King's Evil, the ritual though which English monarchs exercised their thaumaturgic gift of healing the disease scrofula. In the 16th century the habit evolved of hanging a gold angel coin around the neck of the person touched by the king or queen and this became a firm part of the ceremony. After the Stuart Restoration no new angel coins were made and instead gold touch-pieces with elements of the angel design replaced them. They are almost invariably pierced, as this was part of their purpose. The gold used to make these medals was 22 carat fineness.As a gold medal with no monetary function, a touch-piece would fall within the purview of the Treasure Act and at least one has passed through the system in this way already. It is a type of object that fulfils the criteria of Treasure, according to the terms of the Act.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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