A pew is a long bench used for seating of a church congregation.

Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the coming of the Protestant Reformation. The rise of the sermon as a central act of Christian worship, especially in Protestantism, made the pew an indispensable item of church furniture.

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 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 pew boxes, and the pews were frequently not of uniform construction throughout the church.

External link

• The West Parish History Corner: Pews, Pew Deeds, and Taxes http://www.westparish.org/history/pews_deeds_taxes.html