PEW. 



PHALANX. 



PEW. The word paw seldom occun in writen upon ecclesiastical 



lw, who almost invariably UM the expression " church Mat.' 



Originally there ware no pew* in churche*, ami the only fixed seats 

 were (tone benches carried along the ado of the churche*, of which 

 example* >till remain in Salisbury and other cathedrals, and in Romsey 

 church. Ham.-, IVrtlmry, Somersetshire, and many other of our old 

 lriah churches. But in the 14th, and atill more generally in the 

 16th century, open aeaU or benche* of wood, with carved ends, were 

 fixed acroa* the nave (but leaving a broad central passage), though the 

 practice was atill perhaps not universal. The*e, legally termed 

 " church aeati," were commonly called " pew*," but pew* in the 

 modern aeo*e of the word, namely, enclosed eeata, did not come into 

 UM until about the period of the Reformation. Before that time no 

 rain are to be found of rlainu to pen-*, although in the common-law 

 book* two or three claims are mentioned to aeaU in a church, or 

 particular part* of a seat. 



By the general law and of common right, all the pews in a parish 

 church are the common property of the parish ; they are for the use 

 in CSMSWNI of the parishioner*, who are all entitled to be seated orderly 

 and conveniently no as best to provide for the accommodation of all. 

 The right of appointing what persons shall sit in each seat belong* to 

 the ordinary and the churchwardens, who are his officers to place 

 the parishioners according to their rank and station. A parishioner 

 has a right to a seat in the church without any payment for it ; and if 

 be has cause of complaint in this respect against the churchwardens, 

 he may cite them in the ecclesiastical court to show cause why they 

 hare not seated him properly ; and if there be persons occupying pews 

 who are not inhabitants of the pariah, they ought to be displaced in 

 order to make room for him. This general right, however, of the 

 churchwardens as the officers of the ordinary is subject to certain 

 exception*, for private rights to pews may be sustained upon the 

 ground of a faculty, or of prescription, which presumes a faculty. 



The right by faculty arises where the ordinary or his predecessor 

 has granted a licence or faculty appropriating certain pews to indi- 

 viduals. Faculties have varied in their form : sometimes the appro- 

 priation has been to a person and his family " so long as they continue 

 inhabitant* of a certain house in the parish ; " the more modern form 

 is to a man and his family " so long as they continue inhabitants of the 

 parish " generally. The first of these is perhaps the least exceptionable 

 form. 



Where a faculty exists, the ordinary cannot again interfere; but 

 where a party claiming by faculty ceases to be a parishioner, his right 

 is determined. There may be, however, a prescription for a person 

 living out of the parish to have a pew in the body of the church. 



With respect to seats in the chancel, the law has not been settled, 

 and great inconvenience has been experienced from the doubts con- 

 tinued to be entertained. It is said that the churchwardens have no 

 authority over pews in the chancel, and it baa been said that the rector, 

 whether spiritual or lay, has in the first instance at least a right to 

 dispose of the seats ; claims have also been set up on behalf of the 

 vicar ; and the extent of the ordinary's authority to remedy any undue 

 arrangement with regard to such pews has been questioned. 



With regard to aUles or isles (wings) in a church, the case is different. 

 The whole isle, or particular seats in it, may be claimed as appurtenant 

 to an ancient mansion or dwelling-house, for the use of the occupiers of 

 which the aisle is presumed to have been originally built. In order to 

 complete this exclusive right, it is necessary that it should have existed 

 immemorially, and that the owners of the mansion in respect of which 

 it is claimed should from time to time have borne the expense of 

 repairing that which they claim as having been set up by their prede- 



The purchasing or renting of pews hi churches is contrary to eccle- 

 siastical law, pew-rents, under the church-building acts,.being exceptions 

 to the general law ; and rents taken in populous places being usually 

 sanctioned by special act* of parliament. Pew-rents in private uucon- 

 secrated chapels do not fall under the same principle, such chapels 

 being private property. 



PEWTER. An alloy of tin and lead, intermediate in hardness 

 between lead and Britannia metal. The best pewter consists of four 

 parU of tin and one of lead, 



PHALANX ($Aa7(), a name given by the Greeks generally to the 

 whole of the heavy-armed infantry in an army, but particularly to 

 each of the grand divisions of that class of troops. The primary 

 signification of phalanx is uncertain ; a straight bar or rod of any 

 material appears to have been so called, and the word may have been 

 applied to a corps of troops, in line, from a fancied resemblance in the 

 latter to such object Ultimately, from their superior military effici- 

 ency, it became appropriated to the Spartan phalanx and the 

 Macedonian phalanx. 



The Greek troop* are represented by Homer as disposed in masses 

 omisiating of many ranks, in order that they might resist, or give 

 impetus to the shock of conflict ; and the word phalaxya is, in several 

 parts of the Iliad, applied to the masses of the combatants, both Greeks 

 and Trojan* : 



'A-ifl f If AJorrat ttiovt tmarra pdUUryytf 

 (' IL/jdii. 126 ; see also ' 11,' iv. 382, ri. 88) ; and the close order of the 



Greeks previously to coming into action is described in ' II.,' xiii. 130, 

 and the succeeding lines. 



A like disposition prevailed among the Egyptians in the earliest 

 tune* of their monarchy, and of this fact some interesting vestiges 

 are preserved in the sculptures on the walls of the temples at 

 Ipsambul and of the palace at Luxor. At tho former place an KX.V|>- 

 tian army is represented as marching in separate divisions of chariots 

 and foot soldier* drawn up in quadrangular bodies, in ranks, and in 

 close order. Each man of tho infantry is armed with cuirass and 

 helmet, and carries a shield and a short javelin ; and among tho 

 figures is that of Sesostru in full panoply, standing in a highly orna- 

 mented car. (Roaselini, ' I Monomcnti dell' Egitto,' plates 87 to 103.) 

 But, from the nature of the arm* and the apparent discipline of tin- 

 troops, it may be inferred that, at the epoch to which the monuments 

 relate, the tactics of the Egyptians were in a very advanced state, and 

 consequently that the order of battle there represented was in 

 use among that people at a time much more remote than the age 

 of Sesostns. 



The ancient Jewish army, modelled probably on that of the people 

 who had long held them In servitude, was divided into bodies of 1 ""'> 

 men each, which were again divided into companies of 100 men 

 (2 Sam., c. 18) ; and it in plain, from other passages in the Scriptures, 

 that these were further subdivided into sections. It consisted both >!' 

 heavy and of light armed troops : the former wore helmets, coats of 

 mail, and greaves, and in action they carried bucklers and used both 

 spear and swords ; the latter also carried shields and used bows or 

 tilings. The men who, from the different tribes, assembled at Hebron 

 to confirm the election of David, are described as being armed with 

 pear and shield, and their discipline is indicated by the expression 

 they could keep rank. 



The troops in tho army of Croesus are said by Xenophon to h.ne 

 been drawn up in vast masses, the depth of the Lydians being thirty 

 men, while that of the Egyptian auxiliaries was one hundred ; and it 

 is added that the whole army had the appearance of three 

 phalanges. (' Cyropo-dia,' lib. vii.) It is sufficiently evident therefore 

 that the deep order of battle, with a regular arrangement of the mm 

 in rank and file, and some systematical division of the phalanx into 

 sections, prevailed in the earliest times ; but it is to the Greek write* 

 that we must go for an account of the particular scales of subdivision^ 

 by which the evolutions of the phalanx on the field of battle \\rre 

 facilitated, and which, joined to the high discipline of the troops, gave 

 to the body so denominated the reputation which it enjoyed till the 

 fall of the Macedonian kingdom. The formation of such scales of 

 subdivisions, and some changes in the arms or armour of the men, are 

 probably what are meant when it is said that Lycurgus, Lysauder, and 

 Epaminondos introduced the phalanx among the Lacedaemonians, tho 

 Argives, and the Thebans. The Macedonian phalanx, the formation of 

 which is ascribed to Philip, the father of Alexander, appears to have 

 been a body of 6000 men, chosen for their good military qualities, par- 

 ticularly well armed, and subject to certain strict regulations. And its 

 efficiency was so great, that it in styled a new invention by Diodoru 

 the name of the country became afterwards very generally applied to it. 



Xenophon, though constantly using the word jJutlanj: in speaking 

 of the whole body of troops which he commanded in the retreat from 

 C'unaxa, when he 4 has occasion to mention the formation or employ- 

 ment of a small body of men for any particular purpose, gives it the 

 name of \Ax os > an '' such body appears to have consisted either of 50 

 or 100 men. On one occasion, some lochi being detached from the 

 army, two of them, amounting to 100 men, are said to have been cut 

 off (' Anabasis,' lib. i.) ; and at another time, from an apprehension that 

 the order of the phalanx would be broken in ascending a mountain, 

 the army was divided into separate lochi of 100 men each. (' IK,' 

 lili. iv.) But in the ' Cyropaxlia' (lib. ii.) a division of 100 men is called 

 TC<I, and this is stated to have been subdivided into sections of ten 

 and of five men each. The scale just hinted at was probably peculiar 

 to the Athenian army, for Xenophon describes the Spartan troops as 

 formed into six n&ptu, each commanded by a polemarch ; he adds also 

 that the mora was divided into four Aox, eight irexrijicoiTTiiv. .vi.l 

 sixteen irtaiuniw, in which the number of men appears to have varied, 

 and to have consisted of from 26 to 86 men. (' Do Hcpub.,' lib. xi.) 

 The mora is said to have consisted of 600 men, but its strength 

 appears to have varied considerably at diffcrent]timcs. These were the 

 divisions of the Spartan phalanx. 



The only existing works expressly written on the subject of the 

 Greek tactics are those of -Klian and his abbreviator Arrian, and these 

 authors lived in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus, that is, long after 

 the age in which the phalanx was superseded by the legion. There- 

 fore, since their descriptions do not agree with what we find concerning 

 tho phalanx in the works of Thucydides and Xenophon, it seems reason- 

 able to conclude that they appertain to the state of this body of troops 

 in and subsequent to the times of Philip and Alexander. ,Kli:m 

 makes the Macedonian phalanx to consist of 16,384 men of the class 

 called sVA/rai, or heavy-tinned infantry; but this must be understood 

 to be the whole body of that denomination in an army, and to be com- 

 posed of four simple phalanges. Joined to the pkihn-. i- a division 



rayita), consisting of half that number of men of the class . 



ol, < r light .irincd troops, and another, called also an epitagma, of 

 cavalry (Im is), consisting of one-fourth of tho number. 



