My dogs may bay at the moon, the owl on the cliff may scatter demoniac laughter, but they cannot
outnoise those obstreperous gulls."
Echoing Clay's "saunterers," Allestree's latecomers kept "the Congregation in a continual motion and agitation." "Often," Allestree wrote, "during the whole time of Praier, the clapping [of] Pew-doors does
outnoise the Reader." (89) Consequently, clerical chastisements against lay inattention were representative of a religious definition of appropriate church behavior, conveyed by devotional literatures and the Book of Common Prayer.