medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
This is all very helpful - thanks to all who have contributed. Paul Barnwell also has an article coming out on this subject imminently (sort of).
My real point is the same as Henk's. We do know that many churches had some pews and / or benches for some people by the 1530s. We do suspect that some churches (eg the Cornish examples) had benches for most people - I'd like some precise dating evidence for those: are they clearly pre-Reformation? But at what point can we assume that it was the norm for a fairly small rural parish church to have benches for everyone, including the great unwashed and passing trade? (In its original location the church of St Teilo, now at St Fagan's, was on a major pilgrimage route to St David's.)
And another thought which has occurred to me. If churches were fully pewed or benched, how did they manage the logistics of carrying the Communion table down to the nave and gathering around it, which is what the rubric suggests for Communion in the established church in the late 16th century? I do know that many parishes simply didn't do that, but I have a feeling that the parishes where pews and benches were more common pre-Reformation were also those which would be most likely to adopt the now arrangements for the Communion table post-Reformation.
Off for another day of being a rather disruptive old pilgrim at St Fagans ...
Maddy
Dr Madeleine Gray
Reader in History
School of Education/Ysgol Addysg
University of Wales, Newport/Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd
Caerleon Campus/Campws Caerllion,
Newport/Casnewydd NP18 3QT Tel: +44 (0)1633.432675
'A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.' (Gilles Deleuze)
________________________________________
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of katherine french [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 22 June 2011 18:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] seating and paving in C16 churches
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
That is unclear, and again probably varied. In some
parishes, they are rented, in some parishes, only those
who hold land have access to benches, which they may then
have rented, or not. In some parishes the churchwardens'
accounts use the word buy and sold with reference to pews;
in some parishes the benches are clearly built ad hoc, and
there is no coherent stylistic program of carving the
bench ends. In other parishes they were done all at once.
In some parishes they were a mixture of both. In St.
Margaret's, Westminster, one member of the royal household
bought a license from the parish to build his own pew, and
he seems to have paid the joiner himself. But most of the
pews were built by the parish. When a parish repewed a
church, the old seating arrangements were often
superseded, this seems to be the case in both Bridgwater,
Som. and in St. Margaret's, Westminster. I have a lot on
church seating in my book <I>The Good Women of the Parish:
Religion and Gender after the Black Death<I>
Katherine French
On Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:31:14 +0200
HenkADSL <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
>religion and culture
>
> Yeah, but who's benches were they?
>
>
> Henk
>
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of
>medieval religious culture
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Namens
>katherine french
> Verzonden: dinsdag 21 juni 2011 21:38
> Aan: [log in to unmask]
> Onderwerp: Re: [M-R] seating and paving in C16 churches
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
>religion and culture
>
> In England, fixed benches, many with lovely bench ends,
>were pretty common
> by the end of the fifteenth century.
> Katherine
> On Tue, 21 Jun 2011 21:20:01 +0200
> HenkADSL <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval
>>religion and
>>culture
>>
>> John wrote:
>>>Remember there are surviving "bench ends" from the
>>>C15/C16,
>>
>> Usually from the benches of canons in churches to which
>>they belonged
>>or in the choirs of abbatial or monasterial churches or
>>chapels. It
>>was a long time before the great unwashed was allowed to
>>sit on fixed
>>benches. Here in Nederland slowly during the 17th
>>century these seats
>>crept into the protestant churches, closely followed by
>>the hidden RC
>>places of worship.
>>
>> Henk
>>
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