With pews filled beyond capacity and comfort, 600 demonstrators would be forced to crane forward in order to listen from the market square.
It is also clear that proximity to the pulpit was one of the defining characteristics of a prestigious pew.
His hypocritical misuse of money is perhaps best embodied by his purchase of a front-row church pew.
It is the custom there to hand the alm's plate in the pews.
Similarly, administering communion with congregants seated in their pews and using individual glasses arose from practical concerns for efficiency and hygiene.
Pulpits and pews were allies in this work, wooden partners in an enterprise that was given life by their respective occupants, preachers and parishioners.
In the former case they are brought out by bickering concerning church pews, in the latter rivalry between local families of gentry led to public disorder.
It is like denouncing those who have come to church for the empty pews.
