History of choir lofts?

Geremia

What's the history of choir lofts? What Church document first mentions them?

They seem to be a relatively late invention, since the choir is part of the sanctuary (or closer to the altar), according to 13^th cen. liturgist Durandus (Rationale Divinorum Officiorum bk. 1, ch. 1 "Of a Church & Its Parts", {19}):

the sanctuary (sanctuarium) is a more sacred place than the choir, and the choir (chorus) more sacred than the body (corpus) [nave]

ScottKChicago

Here's a citation from a Wikipedia article ("Choir [architecture]"):

Schloeder, Steven J. (1998). Architecture in Communion: Implementing the Second Vatican Council Through Liturgy and Architecture. Ignatius Press. p. 137. ISBN 9780898706314. In monasteries, when the choir o[r] schola cantorum was composed of religious, it was usually within the cancelli in front of the sanctuary. The liturgical movement of the Baroque age removed it to a choir loft at the back of the church, thus enabling the sanctuary to be more integrated with the nave.

There's also the idea that the choir supports the congregation's singing better from a loft than up front.

monasteryliturgist

I lived in a monastery in Italy for a few years which is Poor Clare of Origin, Dating to the time of St. Clare. There, the enclosure for the Sisters Choir was originally in a loft from the back of the Church until an earth quake destroyed it in the 1970s.. so that is at least from the 1100s.

Geremia

I'm sure choir nuns have always been outside the sanctuary.

marajoy

Dr. Mahrt gave a presentation on this topic (maybe 15 years ago?) at the Colloquium in D.C. I’m wondering if anyone has notes or a recording of that, or if he ever wrote an article on it. I found this, which is similar from NLM

https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2008/03/choir-loft-question.html?m=1#:~:text=As women were prohibited from,was normally an organ loft.

ghmus7

Imho the loss of choir lofts in Americal church building has degraded music greatly. no loft- no organ. No loft - music has to have microphones to project.. No loft- musicians are now 'on display' and love it...

Don9of11

No loft - music has to have microphones to project

Microphones have their place in the choir loft exspecially as I get older and I can't project like I did when I was twenty. They're also useful in parishes where sound does not propigate or has the resonance it might have in church with marble floors, granite columns, and angel high rafters.

francis

Don

The point being made is that if the church had a true “church acoustic” one wouldn’t need a microphone at all, even if you have minimum projection. The real problem is that architects have thrown out the “thereology” (science married to spirituality) of church architecture. The three primary forms of sacred music - chant, polyphony, and organ require excellent acoustics which have been abandoned. There’s also the mentality that in order to introduce secular forms of music and instrumentation the authentic church acoustic needs to be eliminated. Reverberation in a church is antithetical to pianos, guitars, and drums.

DavidOLGC

francis ......
The point being made is that if the church had a true “church acoustic” one wouldn’t need a microphone at all, even if you have minimum projection. ......The three primary forms of sacred music - chant, polyphony, and organ require excellent acoustics which have been abandoned.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Our small rural church was designed in a way that sound would project and carry acoustically, and we have recently stopped using the PA and mics, both for the priest and lector's use and for the choir and organ, which are in a loft.

Honestly it sounds better without the electronics.

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