Peter Elmer: Valentine Greatrakes, Ireland and the Boyles: the making of an early modern miracle healer
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Dr Peter Elmer, University of Exeter |
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| In 1666, an obscure Irish gentleman named Valentine Greatrakes achieved brief celebrity throughout Britain, when he demonstrated his so-called gift of miraculous 'stroking' before the court of Charles II and at other venues in the city of London. While visiting the capital, his cures also aroused the interest of a wide range of natural philosophers, many attached to the newly founded Royal Society, including Robert Boyle. In this talk, Peter will examine the Irish roots of Greatrakes' claim to heal the sick through the power of touch, as well as drawing a number of intriguing parallels between the lives and aspirations of the Irish stroker and Boyle. While Boyle may have fallen short of fully endorsing the miraculous claims of Greatrakes, there is little doubt that the two men shared much in common, including a deep-seated desire to heal the wider religious and political breaches in early modern Britain. |
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About the Speaker Peter Elmer has a broad interest in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern Europe, with a particular interest in the impact of religious and political change upon medicine and its practitioners (and related fields such as witchcraft and magic) in Britain in the same period. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Exeter’s history department He was formerly a “central academic” in the history department of the Open University where he was responsible for overseeing the introduction of new courses on the history of medicine. . His book on Valentine Greatrakes The Miraculous Conformist: Valentine Greatrakes, the Body Politic, and the Politics of Healing in Restoration has recently been published. His other books include The Healing Arts: Health, Disease and Society in Europe, 1500-1800 . and Challenges to Authority The Renaissance in Europe. website |
