Abstract

This article explores three central questions. What did people, both learned and lay, consider the physical symptoms and effects of prayer to be? Why were these symptoms and effects considered to be therapeutic? How did an awareness of prayer’s physiological benefits shape the practices of sick patients and attendant practitioners? To date, early modernists have demonstrated that the sick and their families 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. This study will highlight that medical practitioners valued and prescribed prayer for both its spiritual and physiological benefits. Equally, lay healers and sufferers 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.