Christine Peters, in her book, Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450-1640, discusses the assumptions about women that were pervasive during this period. She states that, "the prevailing assumption in this period that women were by nature more lustful than men, and that women, their sexual passions having been aroused by the experience of marriage, were insatiable as widows" (Peters, 71). These assumptions are important to understand in connection with the view that women were at the center of the struggle against disorder. Any time a woman behaved badly it was seen as disorderly and therefore threatening. Later on in her chapter Peters concludes, "It was another manifestation of disorder, and another reminder that all such acts were potentially interconnected and were symptoms of the failure of control, which could cause the entire edifice of society to crumble" (Peters, 106). Women were weaker and therefore more susceptible to sin and it was part of men's duty as husbands and fathers to control the women in their lives, not only for the good of their nuclear family, but for society's overall stability (Peters, 106).

Figure 6: Funeral sermons regarding men and women

Examining the overall numbers of the sermons printed and available in the Early English Books Online illustrates an important conclusion. As expected, overall, throughout the seventeenth century, far more sermons printed commemorated men. However, sermons for women actually peaked slightly higher during the decade, 1641-1650, while men's sermons actually fell below that during the same decade. The next decade saw a dramatic spike for men's sermons during the period 1651-1660, while women's sermons declined consistently until about 1670. From 1670 to the end of the century, both men and women's sermons showed a significant increase. The relative scarcity of female sermons in relation to men merely confirms the understanding of early modern social hierarchies: women occupied a subordinate position to men and rarely did women appear publicly in print. With that in mind, there are some interesting points to be seen through an analysis of the numbers.

Figure 7: Funeral sermons regarding men

As discussed in section one, the portion of time where we can see the first significant spike in men's funeral sermons, a 430% increase from 1641 to 1660, is the period of the Long Parliament. This was a period that had a relatively free press and previously prohibited or restricted material could now reach a wider audience than ever before (Bucholz & Key, 264). In addition, the spike in overall numbers of sermons may be related to the deaths in the Civil War that coincides with the data. The numbers then take a small dip but return to a steady climb to end with a much higher number compared to the beginning of the century.

Figure 8: Funeral sermons regarding women

For women, the numbers also start off smaller in the beginning of the century, but they go through more consistent increases and declines until around 1660 when numbers of sermons dramatically increase. Between the start of 1661 and the end of 1680 there is a 250% increase in the number of sermons that were printed.

While the trends for men and women may not be the exact same, they still have enough similarities to support the line of scholarship that notes an increase in the number of funeral sermons being produced during the seventeenth century in England. The Long Parliament's relatively free press, in combination with the greater dissemination and increased emphasis on spiritual matters, contributed to the rise in commemoration of the dead, and the use of sermons to encourage social order.

Figure 9: All sermons of the seventeenth century

The figure above shows the trends for all sermons during the seventeenth century. The numbers of all sermons printed grew in the same way that funeral sermons did and as the number of overall publications did as well.

It is now time to turn to the actual content of those sermons.

Figure 10: Contexts visualization of funeral sermons

The understanding of what was considered good and bad during this period helps to explain some of the content that appears in the corpus of funeral sermons. Processing the entire corpus of sermons through the Voyant tool, Contexts, shows where the word 'good' appears in relation to the other parts of the text. The notable examples are when in use with God, good conscience, a good man, as well as good actions. The prescriptive nature of these sermons means that much of what is said in them will be about the good things done in life and death rather than the negative. The women and men who listened to or read these sermons came away from the experience with clear guidance on how to live a godly existence.

If you click the box with the '?' symbol, you can change the search terms. It is worth looking at terms like godly and fear to explore the other important trends that appear throughout these sermons. The word 'fear' provides an interesting example for discerning various themes in the sermons and the effect the preacher hoped to have on his listeners and readers. The data shows that often, the preacher attempted to calm unnecessary fears - as in the sermon from Taylor Thomas previously mentioned, or to engender a healthy fear of dying without grace. The reality of death and dying presented a major hurdle for many contemporaries to overcome. As Warnicke and Doebler point out, "for seventeenth-century readers, the first death was bearable. It was the second-judgement of eternal damnation-that one must avoid by being ready for the first" (Warnicke & Doebler, Charles Anne Fitz-Geffrey reprint, 41).

Figure 11: Cirrus visualization of funeral sermons

Above is a visualization of the entire corpus of sermons, all 206 of them, created using Voyant's tool Cirrus. This shows the high frequency terms within the corpus. Unsurprisingly the words 'god' and 'death' appear the most throughout the corpus. It is when you begin to look at what some of the smaller, yet still important, terms are, that you get a better sense of the overall content trends that these sermons contain. For ease of analysis, below is the same tool, but with 'godly' terms taken out; these include god, God, christ, Christ, lord, and Lord.

Figure 12: Cirrus visualization of funeral sermons without godly terms

Without the word god overpowering the visualization, it becomes easier to see that terms like good, life, self, grace, and glory, all appear with relatively high frequency. Many of these terms are in line with what was seen as important virtues for Christians to live by during the early modern period. Living a good life and having a good death was very important, it was what they saw as saving them from spending eternity in hell. The word self could be in reference to the personal nature of Protestantism. Glory is an important term in relation to God but also the act of being memoralized in a funeral sermon and the hope of everlasting life in Heaven. As the scholar Christopher Daniell, in his book, Death and Burial in Medieval England: 1066-1550, asserts that, "Man was therefore caught between the forces of evil below in Hell and the forces of good in Heaven" (Daniell, 28). The sermons' contents acted as a negotiation in transitioning between the two destinations.

Figure 13: TermsBerry visualization of funeral sermons

The TermsBerry visualizations above and below utilize another Voyant tool that not only depicts the frequency of terms but in addition, shows the proximity the terms have to one another. As with the Cirrus tool, I have included one with the 'godly' terms included and one without. Figures 11 and 12 help to show not only the important terms, but also how they relate to the other important terms within the corpus. It is also worth noting that the words closest to 'god' are words that suggest how to live well: good, world, love, etc. While closer to 'death' are words that suggest intercession: saints, friends, people, power. The prescriptive nature of these sermons permeated throughout.

Figure 14: TermsBerry visualization of funeral sermons without godly terms

It is interesting to look at not only where the terms appear in proximity to one another, but if you hover your mouse over a specific 'berry' it will tell you how many times the term appeared as well as how many documents it is present in. With 'death' the words seem rather hopeful: love, good, great, glory, faith, heart, love. These are fairly emotionally powerful words too. Possibly reflecting the Christian belief that the next world being paradise and leaving the bonds of the sinful earth. It is also telling when you can see that love only appears in 178 of the 206 sermons while sin appears in 191. This helps to support the argument that while these sermons were able to provide some comfort and closure to the loved ones of the deceased, they focused more on the religious and cultural concerns of the time. The word good appears in all 206 but the word fear appears in ¾ of the sermons as well. The preachers had to balance their purposes while creating their sermons to be able to accomplish their two-sided goals.