I had no idea!

In England, Coroners Decide What Is Treasure and What Is Not
“It’s a bizarre holdover from a previous age.”
by Isaac Schultz, Atlas Obscura

… In 1194, Richard the Lionheart’s England was financially strapped by the Crusades abroad and a suite of issues at home. The kingdom was in want of a bureaucratic upgrade if it was to survive. Few people were more qualified to orchestrate this managerial makeover than Walter Hubert, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Among the rules Hubert outlined in his Articles of Eyre was a new sort of county officer, one who could help settle local matters and, in the process, ensure a steady flow of revenue into the crown’s coffers. Hubert invented something called a coroner.
“The etymology of the word coroner comes from ‘crown’ and ‘crowner,’ and for centuries, they’ve been the crown’s representative in the regions,” says Ian Richardson, the Treasure Registrar at the British Museum, which today houses the finds from Sutton Hoo. In medieval rural England, coroners were the crown incarnate. They organized local juries and supervised county elections, looked into premature or suspicious deaths, and seized the assets of those who died with no clear heirs. …