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'''''*pew pew*''''' |
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{{other uses}} |
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[[File:GustafVasa Benches.jpg|right|thumb|Pews in rows in a church]] |
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A '''pew''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|p|juː}}) is a long [[bench (furniture)|bench]] [[seat]] or enclosed box, used for seating [[Member (local church)|members]] of a [[Local church|congregation]] or [[choir]] in a [[Church (building)|church]], [[synagogue]] or sometimes a [[courtroom]]. |
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==Overview== |
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[[File:KingsNortonInterior.jpg|thumb|Box pews in St John the Baptist, [[King's Norton, Leicestershire|King's Norton]], Leicestershire]] |
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[[File:Pew detail Old Ship Church.jpg|thumb|Detail of pew 42, [[Old Ship Church]], [[Hingham, Massachusetts]], United States]] |
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[[File:BenchendsSapperton.jpg|thumb|[[Jacobean era|Jacobean]] bench end carvings in St Kenelm's Church, [[Sapperton, Gloucestershire|Sapperton]], [[Gloucestershire]], [[England]]]] |
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[[File:Church interior, Gotland, Sweden (3611185997).jpg|thumb|The interior of a church in Gotland, Sweden (19th century)]] |
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The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirteenth century, originally placed against the walls of the [[nave]]. 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.<ref> |
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{{cite book |
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| last1 = Viola |
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| first1 = Frank |
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| authorlink1 = Frank Viola (author) |
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| last2 = Barna |
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| first2 = George |
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| authorlink2 = George Barna |
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| title = Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices |
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| year = 2008 |
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| publisher = [[Tyndale House]] |
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| isbn = 9781414341651 |
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| page = 35 |
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| quote = By the thirteenth century, backless benches were gradually introduced into English parish buildings. These benches were made of stone and placed against the walls. They were then moved into the body of the building (the area called the nave). At first, the benches were arranged in a semi-circle around the pulpit. Later they were fixed to the floor. on the other hand the modern pew was introduced in the fourteenth century, though it was not commonly found in churches until the fifteenth century. At that time, wooden benches supplanted the stone seats. |
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}} |
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</ref> |
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Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the [[Protestant Reformation]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stnicholasstratford.org/article_feb2015_chairs.html|title=On the Christian Life: On Chairs in Church|author=|date=|website=www.stnicholasstratford.org|accessdate=7 May 2018|deadurl=no|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902013230/http://www.stnicholasstratford.org/article_feb2015_chairs.html|archivedate=2 September 2017|df=}}</ref> The rise of the [[sermon]] as a central act of Christian worship, especially in Protestantism, made the pew a standard item of church furniture.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/454697/pew|title=Pew - furniture|author=|date=|website=britannica.com|accessdate=7 May 2018}}</ref> Hence the use or avoidance of pews could be used as a test of the [[high church|high or low]] character of a Protestant church: describing a mid-19th century conflict between [[Henry Edward Manning]] and Archdeacon Hare, [[Lytton Strachey]] 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".<ref>Lytton Strachey, 1918, ''Eminent Victorians''; 1979 Folio Society edition p. 42.</ref> |
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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 (legal document)|title]] 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 [[box pews|pew boxes]], and the ownership of pews was sometimes controversial, as in the case of [[B. T. Roberts#Conflict with Methodist Episcopal Church|B. T. Roberts]]: a notice that the pews were to be free in perpetuity was sometimes erected as a condition of building grants.<ref>E.g., Shedfield church, Hampshire.{{fact|date=January 2015}}</ref> |
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Certain areas of the church were considered to be more desirable than others, as they might offer a better view of [[Church service|services]] or, indeed, might make a certain family or person more prominent or visible to their neighbours during these services. During the late [[medieval]] 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 to contribution to the material upkeep of the church, such as the erection of [[long gallery|galleries]]. Disputes over pew ownership were not uncommon.<ref>A. Mather ''The Politics of Place: A Study of Church Seating in Essex, c.1580-1640'', Friends of the Department of English Local History, Friends Papers No. 3, Leicester (1999)</ref><ref>C. Wright, The spatial ordering of community in English church seating, c.1550-1700 PhD thesis, [[University of Warwick]] (2002)</ref> |
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Pews are generally made of wood and arranged in rows facing the altar in the [[nave]] of a church. Usually a pathway is left between pews in the center to allow for a procession; some have benchlike cushioned seating, and [[Kneeler|hassock]]s or footrests, although more traditional, conservative churches usually have neither cushions nor footrests. Many pews have slots behind each pew to hold [[Bible]]s, [[prayer book]]s, [[hymnal]]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. |
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In churches with a tradition of public kneeling prayer, pews are often equipped with [[kneeler]]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. |
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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. |
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{{-}} |
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==Pew rents== |
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[[File:Box pew in St. Martin's Church - geograph.org.uk - 720262.jpg|thumb|Box pew in St Martin's church, [[Thompson, Norfolk]]]] |
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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 [[Tithe|tithing]]. This, by nature, enforced a sort of social status in church seating within a parish. Architecturally, pew rents led to a divergence between American and European church furnishing persisting to this day.{{Citation needed|date=October 2018}} Pews became far more common in American churches because they were a source of income.{{Citation needed|date=October 2018}} |
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[[File:Milford Malvoisin pews.jpg|thumb|left|"Churches as they were, and as they will be", illustration of church pews from ''Milford Malvoisin, or Pews and Pewholders'' (1842), by [[Francis Edward Paget]]]] |
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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, very questionable.<ref >{{cite book|author=Nigel Scotland|title=Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late Victorian Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b5zCBt5EuiEC&pg=PA4|accessdate=27 February 2013|date=15 August 2007|publisher=[[I.B.Tauris]]|isbn=978-1-84511-336-0|page=4}}</ref> 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 (antiquary)|Richard Yates]] in his pamphlet ''The Church in Danger'' (1815) with his estimate of over 950,000 people who could not worship in a parish church. St Philip's Clerkenwell, a [[Commissioners' church]], was the first London church to break with pew rents.<ref>{{cite book |author=Nigel Scotland |title=Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late-Victorian London |year=2007 |publisher=I. B. Tauris |isbn=978 1 84511 336 0|pages=3–4}}</ref> |
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[[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".<ref>{{cite book|author=Sydney Smith|title=Edinburgh Review, Or Critical Journal|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VIVHAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA309|accessdate=27 February 2013|year=1853|publisher=A. and C. Black|page=309}}</ref> The early 19th century Commissioners' churches were only required to offer 20% free seating. Attitudes changed from the 1840s, with the [[High Church]] party turning against paid pews. By the 1860s and 1870s that view had become quite orthodox, and was supported vocally by [[Frederic William Farrar]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Chris Brooks|title=The Victorian Church: Architecture and Society|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8GO7AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA41|accessdate=27 February 2013|year=1995|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-4020-7|page=41}}</ref> |
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Many Anglo-Catholic parishes were founded at this time as "free and open churches" characterized by their lack of pew rentals.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://anglicanhistory.org/misc/freechurch/fowler_pews1844.html|title=Church Pews, Their Origin and Legal Incidents, by John Coke Fowler (1844)|author=|date=|website=anglicanhistory.org|accessdate=7 May 2018|deadurl=no|archiveurl=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20120828033217/http://anglicanhistory.org/misc/freechurch/fowler_pews1844.html|archivedate=28 August 2012|df=}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Mayer, Samuel Ralph Townshend}}</ref> |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist}} |
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==External links== |
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{{Commons category|Church benches|Pew}} |
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* [http://www.westparish.org/history/pews_deeds_taxes.html The West Parish History Corner: Pews, Pew Deeds, and Taxes] |
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* [http://www.bornagainpews.com/history-of-the-church-pew/ The History of the Church Pew] |
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* [http://www.stgeorgesepiscopal.net/share/A%20Brief%20History(1).pdf A floor plan of an Episcopal Church in Virginia in 1849, showing the cost of each pew] |
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[[Category:Benches (furniture)]] |
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[[Category:Church architecture]] |
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[[Category:Christian terminology]] |
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[[Category:Christian religious furniture]] |
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Revision as of 21:18, 17 December 2018
*pew pew*