Conclusion

For much of history Britons have viewed their own parish as an exclusive unit, a feeling vividly displayed in the custom of ‘beating of the bounds’. The law of pew-renting favouring parishioners over outsiders was similarly slanted towards the independence of each parish. Where a church was crowded and competition was likely to exist for the better seats, the introduction of pew-rents was likely to have been tolerated not only as such a means of reducing conflicts but also because paying for appropriated pews gave each renter a pecuniary element to add to his or her feeling of prerogative. And to each one the payment of pew-rents was not only a statement of allegiance to the church but also a concrete, indisputable indication of his or her standing within the congregation. Congregants also surely had a sense that they contributed voluntarily and materially to the church, which they did not in systems of mere seat allocation.