![ICS traditional church pews](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/ICS_traditional_church_pews.jpg)
A pew () is a long
bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating
members
Member may refer to:
* Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon
* Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set
* In object-oriented programming, a member of a class
** Field (computer science), entries in ...
of a
congregation
A congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship.
Congregation may also refer to:
* Church (congregation), a Christian organization meeting in a particular place for worship
*Congregation (Roman Curia), an administr ...
or
choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
in a
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
,
synagogue or sometimes a
courtroom.
Overview
![Church interior, Gotland, Sweden (3611185997)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Church_interior%2C_Gotland%2C_Sweden_%283611185997%29.jpg)
The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirteenth century, originally placed against the walls of the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
. Over time, they were brought into the centre of the room, first as moveable furniture and later fixed to the floor. Wooden benches replaced the stone ones from the fourteenth century and became common in the fifteenth.
Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the
Protestant Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...
. The rise of the
sermon
A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. ...
as a central act of Christian worship, especially in Protestantism, made the pew a standard item of church furniture. Hence the use or avoidance of pews could be used as a test of the
high or low character of a Protestant church: describing a mid-19th century conflict between
Henry Edward Manning
Henry Edward Manning (15 July 1808 – 14 January 1892) was an English prelate of the Catholic church, and the second Archbishop of Westminster from 1865 until his death in 1892. He was ordained in the Church of England as a young man, but conv ...
and Archdeacon Hare,
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of '' Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...
remarks with characteristic irony, "Manning had been removing the high pews from the church in Brighton, and putting in open benches in their place. Everyone knew what that meant; everyone knew that the high pew was one of the bulwarks of Protestantism, and that an open bench had upon it the taint of Rome".
In some churches, pews were installed at the expense of the congregants, and were their personal property; there was no general public seating in the church itself. In these churches, ''pew deeds'' recorded
title
A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...
to the pews, and were used to convey them. Pews were originally purchased from the church by their owners under this system, and the purchase price of the pews went to the costs of building the church. When the pews were privately owned, their owners sometimes enclosed them in lockable
pew boxes, and the ownership of pews was sometimes controversial, as in the case of
B. T. Roberts: a notice that the pews were to be free in perpetuity was sometimes erected as a condition of building grants.
Certain areas of the church were considered to be more desirable than others, as they might offer a better view of
services
Service may refer to:
Activities
* Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty
* Civil service, the body of employees of a government
* Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...
or, indeed, might make a certain family or person more prominent or visible to their neighbours during these services. During the late
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and early modern period, attendance at church was legally compulsory, so the allocation of a church's pews offered a public visualisation of the social hierarchy within the whole parish. At this time many pews had been handed down through families from one generation to the next. Alternatively, wealthier inhabitants often expected more prestigious seating in reward for contribution to the material upkeep of the church, such as the erection of
galleries. Disputes over pew ownership were not uncommon.
Pews are generally made of wood and arranged in rows facing the altar in the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
of a church. Usually a pathway is left between pews in the center to allow for a procession; some have benchlike cushioned seating, and
hassocks
Hassocks is a large village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. Its name is believed to derive from the tufts of grass found in the surrounding fields.
Located approximately north of Brighton, with a populatio ...
or footrests, although more traditional, conservative churches usually have neither cushions nor footrests. Many pews have slots behind each pew to hold
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
s,
prayer book
A prayer book is a book containing prayers and perhaps devotional readings, for private or communal use, or in some cases, outlining the liturgy of religious services. Books containing mainly orders of religious services, or readings for them are ...
s,
hymnal
A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook (or hymn book). Hymnals are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts (normal for most hymnals for most centuries of Chr ...
s or other church literature. Sometimes the church may also provide stations on certain rows that allow the hearing-impaired to use headsets in order to hear the sermon. In many churches pews are permanently attached to the floor, or to a wooden platform.
In churches with a tradition of public kneeling prayer, pews are often equipped with
kneeler
A kneeler is a cushion (also called a tuffet or hassock) or a piece of furniture used for resting in a kneeling position during Christian prayer.
In many churches, pews are equipped with kneelers in front of the seating bench so members of ...
s in front of the seating bench so members of the congregation can kneel on them instead of the floor. These kneelers essentially have long, usually padded boards which run lengthwise parallel to the seating bench of the pew. These kneeler boards may be 15 cm or so wide and elevated perhaps 10–15 cm above the floor, but dimensions can vary widely. Permanently attached kneelers are often made so they can be rotated or otherwise moved up out of the way when the congregation members are not kneeling.
Due to the prominence in European culture and usefulness, the usage of the pew has spread to many courtrooms in Europe and has additionally spread to Jewish synagogues due to trends of modelling synagogues similar to churches in Western Europe. In most old churches the family names are carved into the end of the pew to show who sat there but in some bigger cases the name of a village was carved into the end and only one person from every village came to mass every week.
Pew rents
![Box pew in St](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Box_pew_in_St._Martin%27s_Church_-_geograph.org.uk_-_720262.jpg)
Until the early/mid twentieth century, it was common practice in Anglican, Catholic, and Presbyterian churches to rent pews in churches to families or individuals as a principal means of raising income. This was especially common in the United States where churches lacked government support through mandatory
tithing
A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or ...
. This enforced and demonstrated social standing within a parish.
![Milford Malvoisin pews](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Milford_Malvoisin_pews.jpg)
Pew rental emerged as a source of controversy in the 1840s and 1850s, especially in the Church of England. The legal status of pew rents was, in many cases, questionable. Further, it exacerbated a problem with a lack of accommodation in churches that had been noted already in the 1810s, especially in London, and in particular by
Richard Yates in his pamphlet ''The Church in Danger'' (1815) with his estimate of over 950,000 people who could not afford to worship in a parish church. St Philip's Clerkenwell, a
Commissioners' church
A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in the United Kingdom built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The 1818 Act supplie ...
, was the first London church to break with pew rents.
William James Conybeare commented on the pew system in his "Church Parties" article in the ''
Edinburgh Review'' of 1853, stating that it was the Anglicans who had adopted the slogan "Equality within the House of God". The early 19th century Commissioners' churches were only required to offer 20% free seating. Attitudes changed from the 1840s, with the
High Church
The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
party turning against paid pews. By the 1860s and 1870s that view had become quite orthodox, and was supported vocally by
Frederic William Farrar
Frederic William Farrar (Bombay, 7 August 1831 – Canterbury, 22 March 1903) was a cleric of the Church of England ( Anglican), schoolteacher and author. He was a pallbearer at the funeral of Charles Darwin in 1882. He was a member of the Camb ...
.
Many Anglo-Catholic parishes were founded at this time as "free and open churches" characterized by their lack of pew rentals. In mid-century reforms, pews were on occasion removed from English churches in order to discourage rental practices. The Free and Open Church Association was founded in 1866 by
Samuel Ralph Townshend Mayer.
References
External links
The West Parish History Corner: Pews, Pew Deeds, and TaxesThe History of the Church PewA floor plan of an Episcopal Church in Virginia in 1849, showing the cost of each pew
{{Authority control
Benches (furniture)
Church architecture
Christian terminology
Christian religious furniture