Following a seventeen-year career at the Open University as a lecturer in the History department, Dr Peter Elmer is now employed as a Senior Research Fellow on a five-year Wellcome funded project at the University of Exeter which aims to create a comprehensive and interactive database of medical practitioners in early modern England, Wales and Ireland. His research is focused on early modern medicine, and its relationship to broader religious and political issues, with a particular emphasis on the role of magic and witchcraft in early modern British society.

Elmer's account is always careful and well balanced, and offers an analysis which is nuanced and entirely persuasive. ... Elmer convincingly shows how Greatrakes's seeming success as a faith healer not only could be used to combat the widelt perceived threat of atheism, but also could be used, by some at least, to promote religious reconciliation and political unity.

• 1. Introduction ; 2. The Making of an Early Modern Miracle Healer: Valentine Greatrakes, 1629-1660 ; 3. Greatrakes, Ireland, and the Restoration, 1660-1665 ; 4. 'An Exemplar of Candid and Sincere Christianity': Greatrakes' Mission to England in 1666 ; 5. Healing, Witchcraft, and the Body Politic in Restoration Britain ; 6. Epilogue and conclusion ; Appendix 1: The family tree of Valentine Greatrakes ; Appendix 2: A biographical index of those either cured by Greatrakes, or who testified, witnessed, or commented upon his cures ; Appendix 3: Letters addressed to Valentine Greatrakes, 1666-1672 ; Bibliography ; Index

Following a seventeen-year career at the Open University as a lecturer in the History department, Dr Peter Elmer is now employed as a Senior Research Fellow on a five-year Wellcome funded project at the University of Exeter which aims to create a comprehensive and interactive database of medical practitioners in early modern England, Wales and Ireland. His research is focused on early modern medicine, and its relationship to broader religious and political issues, with a particular emphasis on the role of magic and witchcraft in early modern British society.

Elmer's account is always careful and well balanced, and offers an analysis which is nuanced and entirely persuasive. ... Elmer convincingly shows how Greatrakes's seeming success as a faith healer not only could be used to combat the widelt perceived threat of atheism, but also could be used, by some at least, to promote religious reconciliation and political unity.

• 1. Introduction ; 2. The Making of an Early Modern Miracle Healer: Valentine Greatrakes, 1629-1660 ; 3. Greatrakes, Ireland, and the Restoration, 1660-1665 ; 4. 'An Exemplar of Candid and Sincere Christianity': Greatrakes' Mission to England in 1666 ; 5. Healing, Witchcraft, and the Body Politic in Restoration Britain ; 6. Epilogue and conclusion ; Appendix 1: The family tree of Valentine Greatrakes ; Appendix 2: A biographical index of those either cured by Greatrakes, or who testified, witnessed, or commented upon his cures ; Appendix 3: Letters addressed to Valentine Greatrakes, 1666-1672 ; Bibliography ; Index

Following a seventeen-year career at the Open University as a lecturer in the History department, Dr Peter Elmer is now employed as a Senior Research Fellow on a five-year Wellcome funded project at the University of Exeter which aims to create a comprehensive and interactive database of medical practitioners in early modern England, Wales and Ireland. His research is focused on early modern medicine, and its relationship to broader religious and political issues, with a particular emphasis on the role of magic and witchcraft in early modern British society.

Elmer's account is always careful and well balanced, and offers an analysis which is nuanced and entirely persuasive. ... Elmer convincingly shows how Greatrakes's seeming success as a faith healer not only could be used to combat the widelt perceived threat of atheism, but also could be used, by some at least, to promote religious reconciliation and political unity.

• 1. Introduction ; 2. The Making of an Early Modern Miracle Healer: Valentine Greatrakes, 1629-1660 ; 3. Greatrakes, Ireland, and the Restoration, 1660-1665 ; 4. 'An Exemplar of Candid and Sincere Christianity': Greatrakes' Mission to England in 1666 ; 5. Healing, Witchcraft, and the Body Politic in Restoration Britain ; 6. Epilogue and conclusion ; Appendix 1: The family tree of Valentine Greatrakes ; Appendix 2: A biographical index of those either cured by Greatrakes, or who testified, witnessed, or commented upon his cures ; Appendix 3: Letters addressed to Valentine Greatrakes, 1666-1672 ; Bibliography ; Index