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PEW ( See also: term, in its most usual meaning, for a fixed seat in a See also: church, usually enclosed, slightly raised from the floors, and composed of
See also: wood framing, mostly with ornamented ends
.
Some bench ends are certainly of Decorated character, and some have been considered to be of the Early See also: English See also: period
.
They are sometimes of plain See also: oak See also: board, 21 to 3 in. thick, chamfered, and with a necking and finial generally called a See also: poppy See also: head; others are plainly panelled with bold cappings; in others the panels are ornamented with See also: tracery or with the See also: linen See also: pattern, and sometimes with See also: running foliages
.
The large pews with high enclosures, curtains, &c., known familiarly as " See also: horse-boxes," and See also: common in English parish churches during the 18th and early See also: part of the 19th centuries, have nearly all been cleared away
.
The parish church
an unaltered interior
.
The Latin word podium was particularly applied to a balcony or parapet next to the See also: arena in the See also: Roman theatre where the emperor and other distinguished persons sat
.
According to Du Cange (Glossarium, s.ve podium), it is found in See also: medieval Latin for a bench (subsellium) for the minor canons at a church in See also: Lyons (1343), and also for a kneeling See also: stool in a monastic church
.
The word " pew " in English was often used for a stall for the See also: minister, for a See also: reading desk, or for a pulpit
.
The floor space of the See also: nave and transepts of medieval churches was usually open, mats being sometimes provided for kneeling, and if any fixed seats were provided these would be for the patrons of the church or for distinguished See also: people
.
Some enclosed seats, however, seem to have been reserved for See also: women, as is seen in Piers Plowman, ch. vii
.
144, " Among wyves and wodewes ich am ywoned sitte yparroked in puwes." They did not come into general use till the See also: middle of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century (see Gasquet, Parish See also: Life in Medieval See also: England
.
(1906, pp
.
62 and 133) . Over the few seats thus allotted dispute arose and attempts were made to appropriate them . Thus the constitutions for the See also: synod of Exeter, See also: drawn up by See also: Bishop See also: Peter Quivel in 1287, forbid any one " to claim any sitting in the church as his own
...
. Whoever first comes to pray, let him take what place he wishes in which to pray."
At common See also: law all seats in a parish church are for the common use of all the parishioners, and every parishioner has a right to a seat without paying for it
.
The disposition of the seats is in the discretion of the churchwardens acting for the ordinary for the purpose of orderly arrangement (as to the exercise of this discretion see See also: Reynolds v
.
Monckton, 1841, 2 M
.
& R
.
384), and this can be exercised in cases where all the seats are See also: free (See also: Asher v
.
Calcraft, 1887, 18 Q.B.D
.
607)
.
The right to a seat does not belong to a non-parishioner
.
As against the See also: assignment and disposition of seats by the ordinary, acting through the church-wardens, two kinds of appropriation can be set up (a) by the See also: grant of a faculty by the ordinary, and (b) by
See also: prescription, based on the presumption of a lost faculty
.
Such faculties are rarely granted now; they were formerly common; the grant was to a See also: man and his See also: family " so long as they remain inhabitants of a certain See also: house in the parish "; the words " of a certain house " are now usually omitted
.
The claim to a pew by prescription must be in respect of a house in the parish; the right is subject to the See also: burden of repairing the pew; it is not an easement, nor does the Prescription See also: Act 1832 apply to it (see for the whole subject of a claim by prescription See also: Phillips v
.
Halliday, 1891, A.C
.
228)
.
The letting of pews in parish churches became common in the 16th century, but there are some earlier instances of the use, for example at St Ewens, See also: Bristol, in 1455 (Churchwardens' Accounts, See also: Sir J
.
Maclean, Trans
.
Bristol and See also: Gloucester Archaeol
.
Assoc., vol. xv., 189o—1891)
.
The taking of pew rents in parish churches is illegal (See also: Lord Stowell, in Walter v
.
See also: Gunner, 1798, 3 See also: Hag
.
Consist
.
817); but under the various Church See also: Building Acts seats may be let and rents charged to pay the See also: salary of the minister, &c
.
See A . Heales, See also: History and Law of Church Seats and Pews (1872) ; Phillimore, See also: Eccles
.
Law (1896), ii
.
1424 seq
.
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