subject-reformation-freebo


Introduction

This is a Distant Reader "study carrel", a set of structured data intended to help the student, researcher, or scholar use & understand a corpus.

This study carrel was created on 2021-05-24 by Eric Morgan <emorgan@nd.edu>. The carrel was created using the Distant Reader zip2carrel process, and the input was a Zip file locally cached with the name input-file.zip. Documents in the Zip file have been saved in a cache, and each of them have been transformed & saved as a set of plain text files. All of the analysis -- "reading" -- has been done against these plain text files. For example, a short narrative report has been created. This Web page is a more verbose version of that report.

All study carrels are self-contained -- no Internet connection is necessary to use them. Download this carrel for offline reading. The carrel is made up of many subdirectories and data files. The manifest describes each one in greater detail.

Size

There are 37 item(s) in this carrel, and this carrel is 3,442,314 words long. Each item in your study carrel is, on average, 93,035 words long. If you dig deeper, then you might want to save yourself some time by reading a shorter item. On the other hand, if your desire is for more detail, then you might consider reading a longer item. The following charts illustrate the overall size of the carrel.

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histogram of sizes
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box plot of sizes

Readability

On a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is very difficult and 100 is very easy, the documents have an average readability score of 90. Consequently, if you want to read something more simplistic, then consider a document with a higher score. If you want something more specialized, then consider something with a lower score. The following charts illustrate the overall readability of the carrel.

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histogram of readability
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box plot of readability

Word Frequencies

By merely counting & tabulating the frequency of individual words or phrases, you can begin to get an understanding of the carrel's "aboutness". Excluding "stop words", some of the more frequent words include:

church, god, king, made, one, will, great, may, time, men, yet, us, also, might, shall, many, now, much, first, good, bishop, make, man, things, religion, therefore, without, pope, say, christ, people, well, council, must, lord, thing, two, though, england, true, queen, done, see, others, day, sent, duke, bishops, rome, take

Using the three most frequent words, the three files containing all of those words the most are The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland containing five books : together with some treatises conducing to the history., An historical defence of the Reformation in answer to a book intituled, Just-prejudices against the Calvinists / written in French by the reverend and learned Monsieur Claude ... ; and now faithfully translated into English by T.B., M.A., and Memorials of the Most Reverend Father in God, Thomas Cranmer sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury wherein the history of the Church, and the reformation of it, during the primacy of the said archbishop, are greatly illustrated : and many singular matters relating thereunto : now first published in three books : collected chiefly from records, registers, authentick letters, and other original manuscripts / by John Strype ....

The most frequent two-word phrases (bigrams) include:

jesus christ, french king, mean time, king henry, let us, king ferdinand, duke maurice, learned men, every one, set forth, must needs, holy ghost, general council, next day, every man, christ jesus, one another, king edward, true religion, many things, ye shall, queen mary, gods word, iohn knox, made use, many years, new testament, true church, english books, good men, make use, early english, greatest part, great many, queen elizabeth, every thing, taken away, almighty god, sound judgment, roman non, thought fit, two years, nothing else, good works, take care, whole body, books online, tells us, neither yet, holy scripture

And the three file that use all of the three most frequent phrases are To the right honourable the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament. The humble petition of many of the gentry, ministers, free-holders, and other inhabitants of the county of Kent, and the cities of olders, and other inhabitants of the county of Kent, and the cities of Canterbury and Rochester, and county of Canterbury, with the Cinque Ports, and their members, and other corporations within the said county. Votivæ Angliæ, Englands complaint to their king:, or, The humble desires of all the zealous and true-hearted Protestants in this kingdome, for a speedy and happy reformation of abuses in church government, being the onely meanes to remove these distractions, and to avert the judgement of God from us. : As they were expressed in sundry petitions, remonstrances and letters, lately presented from them to the king, upon sundry occasions. / Collected by a wel-wisher to reformation., and Truth maintained, or Positions delivered in a sermon at the Savoy: since traduced for dangerous: now asserted for sound and safe. By Thomas Fuller, B.D. late of Sidney Colledge in Cambridge. The particulars are these. I That the doctrine of the impossibility of a churches perfection, in this world, being wel understood, begets not lazinesse but the more industry in wise reformers. II That the Church of England cannot justly be taxed with superstitious innovations. III How farre private Christians, ministers, and subordinate magistrates, are to concurre to the advancing of a publique reformation. IIII What parts therein are only to be acted by the Supreme power. V Of the progresse, and praise of passive obedience. VI That no extraordinary excitations, incitations, or inspirations are bestowed from God, on men in these dayes. VII That it is utterly unlawfull to give any just offence to the papist, or to any men whatsoever. VIII What advantage the Fathers had of us, in learning and religion, and what we have of them. IX That no new light, or new essentiall truths, are, or can be revealed in this age. X That the doctrine of the Churches imperfection, may safely be preached, and cannot honestly be concealed. With severall letters, to cleare the occasion of this book..

While often deemed superficial or sophomoric, rudimentary frequencies and their associated "word clouds" can be quite insightful:

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unigrams
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bigrams

Keywords

Sets of keywords -- statistically significant words -- can be enumerated by comparing the relative frequency of words with the number of times the words appear in an entire corpus. Some of the most statistically significant keywords in the carrel include:

church, king, god, religion, england, reformation, lord, pope, council, authority, scripture, bishops, queen, power, parliament, laws, law, english, churches, roman, people, faith, doctrine, clergy, body, truth, state, gospel, father, duke, court, communion, christian, christ, book, tcp, order, holy, henry, french, fathers, crown, bishop, spirit, son, sacrament, princes, papists, opinion, man

And now word clouds really begin to shine:

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keywords

Topic Modeling

Topic modeling is another popular approach to connoting the aboutness of a corpus. If the study carrel could be summed up in a single word, then that word might be king, and Bentivolio and Urania in four bookes / by N.I. D.D. is most about that word.

If the study carrel could be summed up in three words ("topics") then those words and their significantly associated titles include:

  1. god - The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland containing five books : together with some treatises conducing to the history.
  2. church - Bentivolio and Urania in four bookes / by N.I. D.D.
  3. king - The general history of the Reformation of the Church from the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome, begun in Germany by Martin Luther with the progress thereof in all parts of Christendom from the year 1517 to the year 1556 / written in Latin by John Sleidan ; and faithfully englished. To which is added A continuation to the Council of Trent in the year 1562 / by Edward Bohun.

If the study carrel could be summed up in five topics, and each topic were each denoted with three words, then those topics and their most significantly associated files would be:

  1. king, bishop, church - The history of the reformation of the Church of England. The first part of the progess made in it during the reign of K. Henry the VIII / by Gilbert Burnet.
  2. king, duke, time - The general history of the Reformation of the Church from the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome, begun in Germany by Martin Luther with the progress thereof in all parts of Christendom from the year 1517 to the year 1556 / written in Latin by John Sleidan ; and faithfully englished. To which is added A continuation to the Council of Trent in the year 1562 / by Edward Bohun.
  3. church, god, reformation - Pax vobis, or Ghospell and libertie against ancient and modern papists. By E.G. preacher of the word. Dedicated to the right honble the Lord Halyfax
  4. god, shall, said - The historie of the reformation of the Church of Scotland containing five books : together with some treatises conducing to the history.
  5. god, great, good - Bentivolio and Urania in four bookes / by N.I. D.D.

Moreover, the totality of the study carrel's aboutness, can be visualized with the following pie chart:

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topic model

Noun & Verbs

Through an analysis of your study carrel's parts-of-speech, you are able to answer question beyonds aboutness. For example, a list of the most frequent nouns helps you answer what questions; "What is discussed in this collection?":

time, men, things, man, thing, people, others, day, nothing, religion, part, way, place, reason, words, self, death, scripture, matter, body, kings, manner, cause, years, rest, power, end, name, life, order, p., none, year, person, times, hath, truth, answer, king, hands, persons, one, use, faith, word, ad, purpose, matters, hand, places

An enumeration of the verbs helps you learn what actions take place in a text or what the things in the text do. Very frequently, the most common lemmatized verbs are "be", "have", and "do"; the more interesting verbs usually occur further down the list of frequencies:

be, was, is, had, were, have, are, made, being, said, been, did, do, make, say, having, done, sent, take, give, put, come, see, came, taken, given, know, set, thought, has, called, let, brought, think, according, found, believe, concerning, gave, received, took, find, went, go, read, used, desired, am, began, heard

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nouns
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verbs

Proper Nouns

An extraction of proper nouns helps you determine the names of people and places in your study carrel.

god, king, church, 〉, ◊, 〈, pope, bishop, christ, lord, council, england, queen, duke, rome, bishops, emperour, princes, arch, emperor, book, reformation, authority, law, france, doctrine, hath, ●, de, prince, c., henry, court, faith, parliament, holy, religion, ye, st., english, germany, men, protestants, gods, clergy, world, father, iohn, lords, jesus

An analysis of personal pronouns enables you to answer at least two questions: 1) "What, if any, is the overall gender of my study carrel?", and 2) "To what degree are the texts in my study carrel self-centered versus inclusive?"

he, it, his, they, their, them, i, him, we, our, you, her, your, us, my, she, themselves, himself, me, its, thy, thee, one, ye, theirs, ours, mine, yours, yow, us''d, ''s, ian, hers, whereof, s, yourself, ''em, whosoever, ourselves, o, itself, herself, themself, non, ●, ys, l, yt, u, myself

Below are words cloud of your study carrel's proper & personal pronouns.

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proper nouns
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pronouns

Adjectives & Verbs

Learning about a corpus's adjectives and adverbs helps you answer how questions: "How are things described and how are things done?" An analysis of adjectives and adverbs also points to a corpus's overall sentiment. "In general, is my study carrel positive or negative?"

other, such, great, same, many, good, own, more, true, first, much, whole, last, new, little, present, most, former, common, necessary, certain, old, several, next, french, few, better, able, particular, long, least, false, contrary, second, greater, greatest, holy, private, best, publick, full, small, like, very, late, chief, poor, fit, general, high

not, so, then, also, now, only, more, therefore, very, as, most, up, well, yet, much, never, out, there, first, here, before, ever, again, thus, far, too, down, even, long, onely, together, in, away, rather, afterwards, indeed, still, off, no, otherwise, especially, forth, over, thereof, all, soon, just, else, on, once

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adjectives
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adverbs

Next steps

There is much more to a study carrel than the things outlined above. Use this page's menubar to navigate and explore in more detail. There you will find additional features & functions including: ngrams, parts-of-speech, grammars, named entities, topic modeling, a simple search interface, etc.

Again, study carrels are self-contained. Download this carrel for offline viewing and use.

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