SOURCE: "English Political Sermons, 1603-1640," in The Huntington Library Quarterly, No. 1, October, 1939, pp. 1-22.

In the following essay, Davies examines the role played by English political sermons in forming public opinion about the country's government, and studies the "highly significant attempt by the crown to control pulpit utterances."

How many sermons were preached throughout the length and breadth of England and Wales during the first forty years of the seventeenth century is utterly unknown, and any estimate must be pure guesswork. Even at the meager allowance of one sermon per parish per year,¹ the total would be 360,000 sermons delivered. The number printed and surviving is extremely small in comparison with the number preached. Edith L. Klotz, who made a subject analysis of English imprints for every tenth year from 1480 to 1640,² tells me that clearly identifiable sermons in the Short-Title Catalogue, for the years 1600, 1610, 1620, 1630, and 1640, number 7, 29, 46, 43, and 34, respectively. Supposing...