This article explores three central questions. What did people consider the physical effects of prayer to be? Why were these effects considered to be therapeutic? How did an awareness of prayer’s physiological benefits shape the practices of patients and practitioners? It also presents a wider attempt to incorporate the notion of ‘double care’ into our thinking about early modern medical treatment. To date, early modernists have demonstrated that the sick engaged in prayer in order to elicit the Lord’s mercy and bring about a recovery. What remains underexplored is the way in which prayer was believed to somatically manifest in the devotee’s own body. Exploring this theme will highlight that medical practitioners, clergymen and the laity perceived and invoked prayer as both a spiritual and physical aid. In this way, prayer was not only a central religious exercise but also could be an important component of early modern therapeutics.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Guerrini, Anita;
(2012)
Health, National Character and the English Diet in 1700
(/isis/citation/CBB001221618/)
Chapter
Philippian, Mardy, Jr.;
(2013)
The Book of Common Prayer, Theory of Mind, and Autism in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB001201701/)
Book
Pettit, Edward;
(2001)
Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms, and Prayers from British Library Ms Harley 585: The Lacnunga, v 2: Commentary and Bibliography
(/isis/citation/CBB000102086/)
Article
Stolberg, Michael;
(2012)
“Abhorreas Pinguedinem”: Fat and Obesity in Early Modern Medicine (c. 1500--1750)
(/isis/citation/CBB001221620/)
Article
Clericuzio, Antonio;
(2012)
Chemical and Mechanical Theories of Digestion in Early Modern Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB001221616/)
Article
Orland, Barbara;
Spary, E. C.;
(2012)
Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB001221614/)
Article
Lauren Kassell;
Robert Ralley;
(2021)
Prayer and Physic in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB908456886/)
Article
Newton, Hannah;
(2011)
“Very Sore Nights and Days”: The Child's Experience of Illness in Early Modern England, c. 1580--1720
(/isis/citation/CBB001230154/)
Book
Bourke, Joanna;
(2014)
The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers
(/isis/citation/CBB001202302/)
Article
Edith Snook;
(2016)
‘The Women Know’: Children’s Diseases, Recipes and Women’s Knowledge in Early Modern Medical Publications
(/isis/citation/CBB432816709/)
Chapter
Siena, Kevin P.;
(2020)
Corpses, Contagion and Courage: Fear and the Inspection of Bodies in 17th-Century London
(/isis/citation/CBB023895563/)
Article
Daphna Oren-Magidor;
Catherine Rider;
(2016)
Introduction: Infertility in Medieval and Early Modern Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB050245136/)
Book
Olivia Weisser;
(2015)
Ill Composed: Sickness, Gender, and Belief in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB692734827/)
Book
Ssandra Cavallo;
Tessa Storey;
(2017)
Conserving Health in Early Modern Culture: Bodies and Environments in Italy and England
(/isis/citation/CBB468254838/)
Article
Weisser, Olivia;
(2009)
Boils, Pushes and Wheals: Reading Bumps on the Body in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB000932798/)
Article
Roos, Anna Marie;
(2000)
Luminaries in Medicine: Richard Mead, James Gibbs, and Solar and Lunar Effects on the Human Body in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB000110483/)
Book
Elaine Leong;
(2018)
Recipes and Everyday Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and the Household in Early Modern England
(/isis/citation/CBB864487078/)
Book
Mortimer, Ian;
(2009)
The Dying and the Doctors: The Medical Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England
(/isis/citation/CBB001230358/)
Book
Noble, Louise Christine;
(2011)
Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB001231015/)
Article
Kassell, Lauren;
(2014)
Casebooks in Early Modern England: Medicine, Astrology, and Written Records
(/isis/citation/CBB001202352/)
Social History of Medicine
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
Medical History
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Be the first to comment!