]
Anciently the body of the church appears to have contained no other fixed
seats for the congregation than a solid mass of masonry raised against the
wall, and forming a long stone bench or seat. A bench of this description
runs along great part of the north, west, and south sides of the Norman
church of Parranforth, Cornwall. In the Norman conventual church of Romsey
plain stone benches of this description occur; they are likewise to be met
with in Salisbury and other cathedrals; also in some of our ancient
parish churches, as in the south aisle of Kidlington Church, Oxfordshire.
Seats for the use of the congregation are noticed in the synod of Exeter,
held A. D. 1287. Open wooden benches or pew-work are rarely, if at all, met
with of an earlier era than the fifteenth century, when the practice of
pewing the body of the church with open wooden seats, if not then
introduced, began to prevail. In 1458 we meet with a testamentary bequest
of money "to make seats called puying," and several of our churches still
retain considerable remains of the ancient open seats of the fifteenth
century. At Finedon, in Northamptonshire, the body of the church and
aisles are almost entirely filled with low open seats, with carved tracery
at the ends, disposed in four distinct rows; so that the whole of the
congregation might sit facing the east.
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