ABSTRACT
The occupiers of the manorial landscape within the parish of Earls Colne were visible in the pews of the parish church on every occasion the congregation gathered together. The prominence and prestige of the more eminent village families was plainly visible by the size and location of their pews or at the front of, the parish church. As no formal seating plan survives for Earls Colne, the practices governing pews must be gleaned from the instances of disorder reported in the ecclesiastical court records. Richard Harlakenden's father Roger Harlakenden had built the pews in the chancel according to what he understood to be his right, as both the lay rector of the chancel and the new manorial lord. The tangibility of the Harlakenden pews in the chancel would have marked their presence into spiritual landscape. During the seventeenth century, as in other centuries, the allocation and appropriation of pews could produce tensions and divisions within the village community.
