ABSTRACT
This chapter, whilst discussing a number of general problems, focuses on churches where the surviving material is sufficiently extensive that it mightshed light on the variety of stallwork open to parishes of varying importance. A major problem in assessing the medieval provision of stalls in parish churches is that many medieval parish churches have fragments of classic stalls, sometimes quite extensive, which have almost certainly come from elsewhere. The appearance of what may be cutdown sections of great church stalls in parish churches is a phenomenon much in need of detailed research. The stalls are mounted on a stone pierced base with an acoustic chamber. This is clearly an exceptionally ambitious ensemble in a famously ambitious church, built in a town with a late medieval population which has been estimated at around 500. In what is perhaps the most extraordinary case of parish church stallwork, there is absolutely no doubt as to patronal responsibility.
