https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/author/jwall/Recent content in Jwall on Journal of Digital HumanitiesHugoen-USSat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/transforming-the-object-of-our-study-by-john-n-wall/Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000https://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/3-1/transforming-the-object-of-our-study-by-john-n-wall/<p>Scholars of early modern England have recently begun to pay more attention to sermons. (McCullough, Adlington, Rhatigan 2011). Scholars have recognized that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Jeanne Shami has put it,  sermons were “the mass media of their day,” providing their listeners with reports of “breaking news,” while satisfying “appetites for  .  .  .  entertainment, social interaction, politics, and, of course, religious education” (Shami 2011, 323). Since attendance at services of the Church of England was required by law, and sermons figured prominently in the practice of worship, they were inescapable parts of everyday life. Yet their popularity is undeniable; as many as 5,000 to 6,000 people came on their own to Paul’s Churchyard outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Sundays for additional sermons that lasted for two hours (Figure 1).</p>