Religious Healing

Medical knowledge of the day was inadequate for solving many
health problems, so healing through prayer and divination seemed
like a logical option. Since physicians and healers could be expensive
and were not available in some communities, faith healing
offered advantages. Anyone could pray for help at any time, and
every community had religious leaders to whom they could turn
for this type of healing.

While the Middle Ages are sometimes referred to as the “age
of faith,” there is no evidence that prayer was used exclusively in
the search of a cure unless a family was so poor that they couldn’t
afford other care, or unless a patient was so ill that no medical
professional—who always had to keep in mind his reputation for
care—would take the case.
The wording of prayers from that time shows that the requests
made were indirect. A prayer was sent to a specific saint who was
then asked to contact God on behalf of the person who was ill.
The Virgin Mary was a popular recipient of these prayers, but the
appeals were often made to others as well. St. Apollonia was the
patron saint for toothaches. Eye problems were addressed through
St. Lucy. Patron saints were often martyrs, and the connection between a saint and a particular condition was often based on
some aspect of the saint’s suffering. The story was that St. Apollonia
had her teeth knocked out and her jaw broken before she was
executed, so sufferers of toothaches felt she would be especially
sympathetic to what they were enduring.
Religious rituals often took on aspects of the occult. Because
people lacked education, the words and phrases used often slurred
into more of a magical hodgepodge of nonsense.