There were no comfortable cushioned seats for those who worshipped in mediaeval churches. Wooden or stone benches were ranged along the walls, and 'kneeling places' were made for those who could afford to pay for them. In Acton Church the old stone bench running all round the walls of the nave and chancel still remains. In the choir there were stone seats, called 'sedilia', for the priests. They are set in the wall on the south side of the chancel, and are generally covered, as at Stockport and Mobberley, with a canopy of Early English or Decorated tracery. In the churches which were closely connected with an abbey or monastery, wooden stalls were made for the monks. These are often beautifully carved, and covered with handsome canopies of wooden tracery and pinnacles. The choir stalls of Nantwich are said to have been brought from the Abbey of Vale Royal. The carved oak stalls in Chester Cathedral are thought by many people to be the handsomest in England. Many of them still remain as they were in King Henry the Eighth's days, freed now from the coat of white paint with which stupid workmen covered them at a later time. The heavy seats are fitted with hinges, so that they may be raised. On the under side are quaint carvings of birds and dragons and unicorns, kings, knights and seraphs, illustrating ancient legends such as Richard Cœur de Lion pulling the heart out of a lion, or Scriptural subjects and stories from the lives of the saints. [Illustration: Sedilia at Mobberley] All Cheshire boys and girls should learn to read and understand the stories of the Cheshire churches, for in them is bound up the story of Cheshire men and women of many ages. CHAPTER XX THE REFORMATION AND THE GREAT AWAKENING On one of the walls of the Parish Church of Macclesfield is a small brass plate, a few inches square. It is called a 'Pardon brass', and represents the Pope bowing before Christ, while Roger Legh and his six sons are in the act of prayer. Beneath the figures is the inscription: 'The pardon for saying of five paternosters, five aves and a creed, is twenty-six thousand years and twenty-six days of pardon.' We are not told how much money Roger Legh paid the Pope for obtaining pardon for his misdeeds, but it was a good round sum, I imagine. During the Middle Ages the doctrine grew up that sins committed by one man might be atoned for by the prayers or penance performed by others, together with a sum of money, which varied according to the crime. The price of pardon for robbery was twelve shillings, for murder only seven shillings and sixpence, and for perjury nine shillings. By the sixteenth century people began to have an uneasy feeling that the sale of 'indulgences', as these pardons were called, was wrong, and preachers rose up everywhere to denounce the system.