hancel and the nave. The former was looked upon
as sanctified exclusively to religious uses; the latter was regarded
rather as a consecrated house under the care and protection of the
Church. It sounds somewhat like a paradox to assert that the exclusion
from churches of all that is not distinctly connected with the service
of religion was mainly due to the Puritans, of whose wanton irreverence
in sacred buildings we hear so much. Yet this seems certainly to have
been the case. Traces of the older usage lingered on, as we have seen,
into the middle of the last century; but from the time of the
Commonwealth they had already become exceptional anachronisms.

Before the century commenced pews had become everywhere general. In
mediaeval times there had been, properly speaking, none. A few
distinguished people were permitted, as a special privilege, to have
their private closets furnished, very much like the grand pews of later
days, with cushions, carpets, and curtains. But, as an almost universal
rule, the nave was unencumbered with any permanent seats, and only
provided with a few portable stools for the aged and infirm. Pews began
to be popular in Henry VIII.'s time, notwithstanding the protests of Sir
Thomas More and others. Under Elizabeth they became more frequent in
town churches. In Charles I.'s time, they had so far gained ground as to
be often a source of hot and even riotous contention between those who
opposed them and others who insisted on erecting them. Even in Charles
II.'s reign they were exceptional rather than otherwise, and the term
had not yet become limited to boxes in church. Pepys writes in his
'Diary' on February 18, 1668, 'At Church; there was my Lady Brouncker
and Mrs. Williams in our pew.' On the 25th of the same month, we find
the entry, 'At the play; my wife sat in my Lady Fox's pew with
her.'[879] Sir Christopher Wren was not at all pleased to see them
introduced into his London churches.[880] During the luxurious,
self-indulgent times that followed the Restoration, private pews of all
sorts and shapes gained a general footing. Before Queen Anne's reign was
over they had become so regular a part of the ordinary furniture of a
church, that in the regulations approved in 1712 by both Houses of
Convocation for the consecrating of churches and chapels, it is
specially enjoined that the churches be previously pewed.[881] Twelve
years, however, later than this they were evidently by no means
univers