Manliness.—Query, What is the meaning of the word as used in "N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 94., col. 2. l. 12.
Anonymous.
Minor Queries with Answers.
Pues or Pews.—Which is the correct way of spelling this word? What is its derivation? Why has the form pue been lately so much adopted?
Omega.
[The abuses connected with the introduction of pues into churches have led to an investigation of their history, as well as to the etymology of the word. Hence the modern adoption of its original and more correct orthography, that of pue; the Dutch puye, puyd, and the English pue, being derived from the Latin podium. In Vol. iii., p. 56., we quoted the following as the earliest notice of the word from the Vision of Piers Plouman:
"Among wyves and wodewes ich am ywoned sute
Yparroked in pues. The person hit knoweth."
Again, in Richard III., Act IV. Sc. 4.: "And makes her pue-fellow with others moan."—In Decker's Westward Hoe: "Being one day in church, she made mone to her pue-fellow."—And in the Northern Hoe of the same author: "He would make him a pue-fellow with lords."—See a paper on The History of Pews, read before the Cambridge Camden Society, Nov. 22, 1841.]