were much more severe. Two men of Newbury were in 1669 fined L27 4s.
each for "disorderly going and setting in seats belonging to others." They
were dissatisfied with the seats assigned to them by the seating committee,
and openly and defiantly rebelled. Other and more peaceable citizens
"entred their Decents" to the first decision of the committee and asked for
reconsideration of their special cases and for promotion to a higher pew
before the final orders were "Jsued."

In all the Puritan meetings, as then and now in Quaker meetings, the men
sat on one side of the meeting-house and the women on the other; and they
entered by separate doors. It was a great and much-contested change when
men and women were ordered to sit together "promiscuoslie." In front,
on either side of the pulpit (or very rarely in the foremost row in the
gallery), was a seat of highest dignity, known as the "foreseat," in which
only the persons of greatest importance in the community sat.

Sometimes a row of square pews was built on three sides of the ground
floor, and each pew occupied by separate families, while the pulpit was
on the fourth side. If any man wished such a private pew for himself and
family, he obtained permission from the church and town, and built it at
his own expense. Immediately in front of the pulpit was either a long seat
or a square inclosed pew for the deacons, who sat facing the congregation.
This was usually a foot or two above the level of the other pews, and was
reached by two or three steep, narrow steps. On a still higher plane was a
pew for the ruling elders, when ruling elders there were. The magistrates
also had a pew for their special use. What we now deem the best seats,
those in the middle of the church, were in olden times the free seats.

Usually, on one side of the pulpit was a square pew for the minister's
family. When there were twenty-six children in the family, as at least one