The Sorcerer's Tale: Faith and Fraud in Tudor England

When he came across a foolish young 16th-century aristocrat's confession of attempting to murder his wife and father by sorcery, Ryrie (church history, Durham Univ.; Britain Reformed: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1485–1603) discovered a fascinating way to introduce readers to the deeply entangled worlds of Tudor-era magic, medicine, and religion. The young man had himself been conned, and it is the story of the con man, a would-be physician and magician named Gregory Wisdom, that's at the heart of this book.